


entry number seventeen

by theragingprophet



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, POV W. D. Gaster, Parent W. D. Gaster, Pre-Accident W. D. Gaster, Pre-Canon, Reader is Gaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-05-08 06:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 53,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingprophet/pseuds/theragingprophet
Summary: “The specimen has opened its eyes. It seems to be cognizant? After a few minutes of looking around it started to cry, and reached out with the apparent desire to be comforted.It seems to have an actual, fully-functioning soul.This is... unexpected. The plans will have to be modified.”(In which you are Gaster, and you have no idea what you’re supposed to do, but - in the end, you can only hope you’ll do what’s right.)





	1. the mysterious soul of man that occupied me

You had known, going into this, that it wouldn’t be easy. Obviously not. If it was easy, someone else would have already done it.

But still... You hadn’t expected _this_.

“Something wrong, sir?” One of the assistants asked, hesitantly.

“Hm?” Tearing your eyes away from the slowly forming body, you gave your best attempt at a reassuring smile. You probably failed, given the unemotional nature of your typical expressions, but, oh well. “Ah, no, Dr. Ficus. Everything is quite alright. Just... progressing faster than I had expected.”

Ficus nodded, the tension in his shoulders relaxing. Everyone was a bit uneasy, nowadays. This was the first real bit of progress they’d been able to achieve, and the Underground seemed to become smaller with every passing moment.

There was some days when you liked the curious oddity that was life Underground, but more and more often, you just missed the feeling of sunlight on your face.

It was a harsh reminder, knowing that you had taken the surface for granted all these years, but it only drove you forward.

You had the power, you had the knowledge. Wasn’t it your responsibility to do something with it?

That’s what you had told Asgore, at least. Attempts to break the barrier had failed, none of your other methods making any kind of headway. And no human souls had been obtained yet, if they would ever.

Besides, you knew that Asgore and Toriel wanted to avoid that method if at all possible. Despite everything, they still desired peace with the humans.

Your own personal opinion was less... _merciful_ , but you weren’t the one in charge. And you had enough self-awareness to admit that a large part of your resentment was very personal in nature. The stories your father had told you, the fate of your mother - and eventually your father, as well...

You held no illusions. Perhaps humans weren’t universally evil, but you simply did not trust yourself to show them mercy if given the opportunity.

It was for the best of all that you found another way to break the barrier.

Which was where this newly formed soul came in. If no human souls could be found, and no monster soul would survive long enough, was it not possible to create an artificial soul?

It wouldn’t be sentient. It wouldn’t be able to think, or feel. It hadn’t been given the proper nurturing or initial stages of soul development for such a thing to be true. The body this soul would inhabit was just a vessel.

So, _why_... Why did it feel so unnerving?

You had, of course, donated your own genetic material for the experiment. It had been a pain, having a hole carved out of the palm of your hands, but well worth it. It wasn’t like you could ask your assistants and fellow doctors to do such a thing, after all.

Though, you had been worried. Due to the nature of your soul, and your body in general, you had found yourself unsure of how the soul would develop.

But you couldn’t tell that to the King.

Asgore was a good man, and a great friend. You trusted him with your life, and had been forced to do so many times during the War. But years of paranoia concerning your true nature was a difficult thing to get past, and though you trusted your friends, you knew that you would never tell them.

They wouldn’t be able to understand, wouldn’t be able to see the constant struggle you had been born with.

So, you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to confess your apprehension to Asgore and Toriel. You had simply proceeded with the experiment as planned, regardless of your own fear.

And now, it was happening.

“Doctor, it doesn’t look quite right,” Dr. SixOne said, wringing his hands nervously. “Isn’t it supposed to resemble you? It looks more like an actual skeleton.”

You nodded, carefully keeping your gaze on the small skeletal body forming in the tube, rather than face your coworker and give anything away.

“Yes, but it isn’t a cause for alarm,” You said, reaching out and adjusting some dials. “It appears that the specimen simply resembles my father more than it does me.”

There was a smattering of uneasy laughter, the scientists in the room all acutely aware of how strange this situation was.

You hadn’t quite meant it to be a joke, but it was good that they were getting some form of enjoyment out of this experience.

“Nothing to do now but wait,” Dr. Ficus said casually, and the rest of the group all turned to you as well, hopeful expressions everywhere you turned.

Your lips twitched, but you managed to hold back your mirth. It was odd, sometimes, being reminded that you were the oldest one here. Your colleagues were all brilliant in their own rights, but still so young...

That’s what the War had taken from you.

Humor effectively destroyed by that line of thought, you waved a hand dismissively. “Go on, then. It’s starting to get late, anyway.”

A cheer went up amongst the staff, all of them filing out of the crowded laboratory. Only one remained behind.

Dr. Goss stood behind you, coughing politely into their hand.

Barely resisting the urge to roll your eyelights, you turned to face them with a steady expression.

“Yes, Dr. Goss? Is there something I can assist you with?”

The doctor’s large head floated a little closer to you, their mouth screwed up into a disapproving frown.

“I do hope you’re not intending to stay here all night, Gaster,” they said, eyeing you with a severe expression. “It’s not healthy to stay in this lab all the time.”

“I am aware, Doctor,” you said, voice perfectly even. You were many years older than the other workers, and they still somehow managed to make you feel like a chastised babybones - even as they acted more childish than you ever could. “However, this experiment is in a very critical stage of development, and I believe it would be best if someone were here to watch over it in case - “

“Asgore and Toriel have been asking after you,” Goss interrupted, clearly unwilling to budge on this. “Look, why don’t you go visit them for dinner, at least? The specimen will still be here when you get back. And I promise, if you do this, I’ll stop bugging you for a full week.”

You paused, for a moment. On the one hand, you didn’t want anything to happen while you were away and unable to mitigate any damages, but on the other hand... a full _week_ of peace and quiet. That was more than you had been afforded for many, many months.

“Well, if they truly desire my company that much,” you deflected, graciously ignoring Goss’s snigger.

“Have some fun, for once,” they said, slapping you on the back.

“No promises,” you retorted, and the two of you headed out of the lab.

…

Why was it always so _awkward?_

“The Whimsun seem to have chosen to stay in the Ruins for good,” Toriel commented, breaking the stifled silence that had fallen over the table. She cut into her piece of pie, carefully appearing to not have noticed the tension.

“Oh?” Asgore said, his muzzle twitching in a weak smile. “Well, if that’s what they prefer...”

You stayed silent, awkwardly fidgeting with your silverware as you counted down the seconds until you could just leave.

When had spending time with your friends become such a chore?

 _Since we were locked down here, in this hell,_ some spiteful part of you whispered. _If we were back on the surface - !_

You cut off that line of thought, clenching your fist. No, it wouldn’t be right to fall victim to such dark thoughts again. It seemed, recently, that you had been trapped in a constant battle of negative emotions.

How annoying.

“ - but that has not stopped some of the Whimsalot and Final Froggits from moving more inward,” Toriel was saying, having continued on with the conversation while you argued with yourself. “I think it will be good for them, to see more of the Underground before they make their final decision.”

“Yes, certainly,” Asgore murmured. You could see how the topic was weighing on him.

The Underground was slowly becoming more familiar, more hospitable, but it would never be _home_.

You wondered if this would be the correct moment to bring up your research, but found yourself hesitating. It was a rather new feeling, this reluctance, and quite an unpleasant one.

You had never wanted to hide away from your friends, your comrades, the people that had fought and died by your side.

The Underground had changed all of you. And not, as you sometimes suspected, for the better.

“I am glad to hear that transitions continue to go smoothly,” you said, finally speaking up once it became clear that Toriel was waiting for some kind of response. “The lab is in good shape, though the land outside of it continues to be dangerous. There hasn’t been any accidents yet, but I fear that it is only a matter of time.”

“Hotland continues to live up to its name, hm?” Toriel said, giving a quiet laugh. But she sobered quickly, not even her love of silly puns enough to brighten up this topic. “We must do something about that soon. The state of the Volcano makes it incredibly difficult to travel in-between Hotland and New Home. If something happens on either side, it will be that much harder to send aide.”

There was a beat of silence, the three of you left staring at your plates in contemplation.

“...I may have a solution,” you revealed, if a bit reluctantly. You really hadn’t planned on sharing this idea with anyone until there was no other option, but... “I’d like to finish my current experiment first, of course, but I believe that I could draw up some blueprints to make travel easier throughout the area.”

“Oh, truly?” Toriel said, clasping her paws together. “Doctor, that is wonderful!”

“I’m so glad to hear it,” Asgore said warmly, seeming to relax for the first time all supper. “Take all the time you need, my friend. You have proven to give only the best results.”

“It will be nice to have some more good news to report to the Kingdom,” Toriel said, and the wording of that caught your attention.

“Some _more_ good news?” You said, unable to hold back your curiosity now that the mood seemed to have settled. “Has something else happened?”

The two monarchs exchanged secretive glances, smiles gracing their faces.

“We planned on keeping it under wraps until the official announcement later this week, but we simply _must_ tell you now,” Asgore began, voice become faster and more excitable as his anticipation rose.

Toriel reached out, grasping her husband’s paw gently. The two of them looked at you, proud grins on their faces.

“We are going to have a child,” Toriel informed you, giggling at the way Asgore squeezed her paw tightly in his excitement.

“We’ve known for a couple of weeks now, but we wanted to wait until the anniversary to announce it - give everyone some new hope,” Asgore explained, eyes trained on his wife with an utterly loving expression.

“I... see,” you said, clasping your hands together. The holes in your palms began to itch.

This was a good thing, wasn’t it? Or at least something to be celebrated.

But the implications of it made your non-existent heart sink. Children meant _community_. They meant a desire to build a home, to gather resources and hunker down. It meant... it meant that the Monarchs didn’t think monsters would be able to escape the Underground any time soon.

 _That’s_ why you had been reluctant to push forward any of your more intensive experiments. You hadn’t wanted to actually _stay here_ long enough for them to become needed!

Still - “Congratulations,” You said warmly, giving the two your best attempt at a smile. “I’m sure everyone will be thrilled.”

You felt like a failure.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Asgore said. “We would’ve never made it this far without your dedication and hard work.”

“Yes, we owe you much gratitude,” Toriel agreed, and you waved it off.

“This is my people, and my burden,” You said quietly. “I only wish that I could do more.”

Asgore smiled sympathetically, reaching across the table to pat you on the shoulder. “Don’t we all, my friend.”

That... didn’t actually make you feel any better, surprisingly enough. You clenched your fists.

Deep inside your rib cage, something was aching.

…

It wasn’t long until you were able to escape back into the lab. Most of the lights were off, and it seemed so quiet without the shuffling of your fellow scientists as they went about their work.

In front of you, glowing faintly, was the tank. There was a similar one right next to it, with a soul barely starting to form.

It was so important that this worked.

No other monsters were capable of creating something like this. When material was removed from monsters, it turned to dust. It didn’t matter if it was bone, or horns, or anything else. You were the only one capable of giving up actual, _genetic_ material.

If this failed…

Well, there was only so many pieces of yourself that you could give. And people would start questioning it before long. You were lucky that the scientists you worked with here were so utterly devoted. They had never even questioned how you had managed to obtain genetic material of yourself for the experiment - they simply trusted you to do the right thing.

You didn’t want to let them down.

Reaching out, you placed one hand delicately on the tank. Just by first glance, the body inside was clearly a skeleton. A real one, unlike your… _deformities_. The bones of your hand, all fused together into one smooth shape, curled into a fist.

This had to work. _Please_.

…

Inside the tank, the specimen twitched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: i have the perfect plan. no one will ever know! mwahahaha!!  
> scientists: he does know that we're still in the same room, right. like, two feet away.  
> gaster: no one will know!
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed!! Come talk to me on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com). i love you all!


	2. it was the secrets of heaven and earth that i desired to learn

_Listen to me, child. You are not like them, not like_ any _of them. You are of a very rare breed. And you can pretend all you like, but it won’t last forever. Be very careful of who you trust, child._

_How can I trust anyone?_

_How, indeed. Even I am quite not like you, child. I know nothing of the struggles you will face, the fear and hatred you must contend against. It is up to you to discover these things._

_...I understand, father._

_No, you don’t. Not yet, at least._

…

“—octer? Doctor Gaster, sir? Are you awake?”

You lifted your head from the desk, eyelights flickering on. You turned to face the young scientist, discreetly wiping your face to make sure you hadn’t drooled all over yourself.

“Suzy. You’re here early.”

Suzy blushed, the scales of her face flushing a darker shade of blue. “A-Actually, Doctor, it’s almost nine. We were, um, getting kind of worried about you.”

Your eyelights widened in alarm, and you abruptly stood from your desk, patting down your lab coat and striding off towards the main lab. Suzy scrambled to catch up, her heels clicking on the tiled floor as she walked beside you.

How could you have been so foolish? To fall asleep _now_ , of all times. The specimen was going to be ready for extraction soon, and you had the nerve to _fall asleep?_

Ugh. Disgusting. And you worried your employees, on top of that.

You could never do anything right.

“Are you okay, sir?” Suzy asked quietly, glancing up at you as she worried her lip.

Looking down, you thought about smiling at her, but immediately dismissed the idea. You weren’t exactly talented at it on a good day, and right now it would not come off as anything but insincere.

“I’m quite alright,” you said instead, focusing your gaze ahead of you. “It seems I was just caught up in my research last night and neglected to set an alarm. No need to panic.”

“If you’re sure,” she replied, though her tone was faintly skeptical.

You thought that you ought to be offended by the insinuation there, but you really couldn’t bring yourself to be. They only worried, and they honestly had every right to do so. The experiments being run here were very precise, and required a certain type of expertise that only you fully understood. Not to sound too arrogant, but if anything ever happened to you, the progress of monsterkind could be pushed back for centuries.

And that wasn’t helped by the fact that you still had yet to grasp how to write in Common. Being a skeleton monster, (or at least, from that genus) you had grown up only speaking and writing in your Font, which happened to be WingDings. Speaking Common had come to you fairly easily, even if your capitalization still sometimes slipped up, but for the life of you, you could not write in anything other than WingDings.

It was one of your biggest frustrations, and also the biggest waste of your time. There was truly nothing that could be done on that part - most skeleton monsters weren’t affected by this restriction so heavily, but of course, you had to be the owner of one of the only unreadable Fonts.

Served you right, really.

Through the bitterness swirling in your head, you managed to make it to the main lab area without causing another incident. Suzy slipped past you, taking her seat next to Goss and whispering urgently to the other Doctor.

Perfect. Now Goss was going to be on your case too.

Taking your seat at the head of the table, you cleared your throat to pull everyone’s attention.

“I apologize for the delay,” you began, “it was a bit of a late night.”

Goss narrowed their eyes at you, clearly displeased, but said nothing. Seemed they would be keeping to their word of ‘no nagging’ after all.

“The first specimen will likely be extracted late today or early tomorrow. I will not ask you to remain for the entire duration, but I am leaving the option open in case any of you wish to stay,” you continued on, laying out the plan for the day. “Yesterday night, while I was meeting with the King and Queen, I told them of my provisionary plans for the CORE.”

This caused excited murmurs to come from the group of scientists, while you waited patiently for it to die down. You understood the appeal. Not only was the CORE a very ambitious and inventive project, it didn’t hold nearly the same emotional weariness that their current project did.

You may not have wanted to actually _build_ the CORE, but even you felt excited at the possibility. It would be the most perfect blend between magic and science to have ever existed, a thing of _beauty_ , for all that it would have to be constructed out of metal.

“I will be with the specimen, checking to make sure that it is progressing correctly. The rest of you may work on your own personal projects, or begin to design blueprints for the CORE, if you wish. The King and Queen seemed very interested in the idea, so make sure to record all of your thoughts, no matter how inane you might believe them to be.”

At that, you gave SixOne a stern look. The cat monster had a horrible tendency to downplay his thoughts, often turning in incomplete reports because he believed that he didn’t have anything more to contribute.

You had tried to convince him otherwise many times, but he was stubborn in his ways. The most you could do was make sure he double-checked his reports before turning them in, and if that failed, set Goss on him. No one could resist Goss’s mother-henning, after all.

SixOne laughed nervously, his ears flicking down against his skull in embarrassment. His gaze dropped down to the table, but he perked up a bit when Ficus gave him a friendly slap on the back.

Moving on, you reminded the small group of your earlier words, and then dismissed them to their work. No doubt, Goss would come to check up on you later, and the others would pop in here and there, but you doubted that anyone would stay for the entire duration like you planned to.

Suzy bit her lip as you turned to exit, seemingly wanting to add something to the conversation. You paused, tilting your head inquisitively as you waited for her response, but after a moment, she merely shook her head, and stood to take her leave.

Internally shrugging, you quickly made your way back to your private lab. If Suzy truly had something on her mind, she would come find you. For a monster that had a very shy disposition, it never truly held her back from reaching her goals.

Despite your initial fears, nothing had changed within the tank yet. A sense of relief welled up inside you, and you caught yourself staring at the tiny skeletal body with something almost like fondness. Immediately, you dismissed it. This was no time to get sentimental.

(For a single moment, you were reminded of the surface. Reminded of life with your father, always traveling, never settling down long enough to actually make a friend. Reminded of your silly, childish self who got attached to certain trees and small animals and pretty looking rocks.

Foolish, foolish sentiment.)

You sat down in your desk chair, letting out a heavy sigh. Somehow, despite the fact that you had no need to breathe, something had been weighing heavily on your ribs.

…

The hours passed. You stayed diligently at your desk, taking notes on the way your project was progressing. Once in a while, you thought that the specimen might have moved, but dismissed the notion. It wouldn’t move until it was removed from the tank, and had the last modifications made.

It wasn’t sentient, after all.

The other scientists poked their heads in every once in a while, clearly interested in the experiment even as they had their own projects going on.

You did manage to avoid another patented Goss Lecture™, thankfully, though they did give you a rather impressive glare when they noticed the tell-tale signs of takeout food all over the lab. It really was a good idea to take them up on their deal - usually one stray paper bag was enough to get the other scientist all worked up.

Something about ‘good eating habits’ and ‘personal hygiene’. Ridiculous. It’s not like it was going to affect your work, so what did it matter?

And besides, you were a skeleton. You could get away with a lot of things that the more fleshy monsters could not.

Like surviving on nothing but burgers and milkshakes for the last six months, as a... _hypothetical_ example.

Still you were left alone soon enough. All the lines of data on the tank were reading steady, and it wouldn’t be long until you would be able to safely remove the specimen. Deep down, some part of you was a bit disappointed that the other scientists wouldn’t be able to witness it.

It was a scientific miracle, after all. It made sense to feel excitement at the prospect, and wish to share it with others. Right?

Right. Obviously.

By the time evening (or what passed for evening in the darkness of the Underground) rolled around, you could not longer sit still. You fidgeted continuously, tapping your fingers along the table and desperately wishing that time would go by faster.

To be honest, you were rather surprised at your own behavior. It had been a long time since you actually felt anticipation towards an experiment’s results, a long time since you had actually been invested enough to care at all.

This was going to be a good thing, you could just feel it. A way to break the barrier, a way to regain their _freedom_. Asgore and Toriel’s child could grow up knowing the sun and moon and stars, knowing the _sky_.

There was no greater gift you could give to them, and no greater thing you desired.

When the last line on the monitor finally stabilized, it felt like the promise of the future.

You could almost feel your nonexistent heart-rate pick up, something pulsing from deep within your fragile bones.

Pressing a button, you drained the tank of its healing water, allowing the specimen to sink gently to the bottom. You hastily pushed up the sleeves of your lab coat before reaching in, absentmindedly summoning another pair of hands to write down your observations. This was a vital moment - every first reaction would have to be recorded, every little piece of information put to paper so that you could study and dissect it later.

And as you carefully wrapped your hands around the creature’s small (so incredibly small, had it always been so tiny?) form, your first impression was this; _warm_.

The creature was warm, and it’s rib cage expanded with every false breath - a phenomenon that skeleton children used in order to help circulate magic within their bodies.

You cradled this _living creature_ carefully to you, looked down upon its smooth, skeletal face that you had helped to create, and felt something wild and primal rise up inside you.

It was something almost like fear.

After another moment of just holding it, your second pair of hands writing everything down almost fervidly, you took a deep (and unnecessary) breath, and carefully lowered it down onto the metal tabletop.

You stepped away from the desk, intending to go get your voice recorder so that you could have another method of taking notes incase all else failed, but found yourself... hesitating.

Foolish, _foolish_ sentiment.

And it was at that moment when you heard it - a thin, wavering cry.

Spinning back around, you found your hands outstretched towards the creature before you could even begin to make a logical thought, barely managing to stop yourself from scooping it back up into your arms.

The creature’s sockets blinked open, small white eyelights appearing. They focused on you, staring in an entirely unnerving manner, until the child’s face screwed up, seemingly in some sort of pain. Their teeth parted, making that terrible sound once again, and big, fat tears made of blue magic began to well up in their eyes.

And so, as a scientist, you did absolutely the most logical decision that was available to you in the moment.

You panicked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: what is this?  
> suzy: i believe that’s called an ‘emotion’, sir.  
> gaster: disgusting.
> 
> the normal update day for this fic is thursday, but i might update early sometimes because i like writing and hate waiting lol. but this means that there’s gonna be another update tomorrow, so look forward to that!
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! and i hope you enjoyed!


	3. the world was to me a secret which i desired to divine

It was almost ten o’clock at night. Grillby was wiping down tables, tutting at the crumbs that had been left behind at the poker table. The dogs must have had a good game, as they’d played for hours from the early afternoon into the evening, but he couldn’t help but wish that they would be a bit more careful with their dog treats.

He’d likely be left sweeping up dog fur as well. Still, Grillby felt something that could almost be described as a grin stretching the flames of his face.

Snowdin was good for him. Even though it was only a ramshackle collection of buildings right now, it had still provided him with a great sense of peace and comfort. Most of his relatives had left to live in the lava pools of Hotland, but Grillby preferred the cold.

It was... _soothing_ , in a way. And so very unlike the days of conflict, those times when he had to burn hotter and hotter than ever before - no. He didn’t want any more reminders of that.

Regretfully, that had led him to somewhat... neglect his former comrades. Many of them had moved far beyond Snowdin, into the capital, and he hadn’t truly attempted to reach out to them. Even Gaster, who had a house in Snowdin, rarely spent any time there, caught up as ever in that lab of his.

Grillby looked down at the wooden table, and realized that he’d been scrubbing it so hard he’d left a dark burn in the shape of his fist.

It wasn’t quite _guilt_ that he was feeling, or loneliness. He was happy in Snowdin. His bar might be small and shabby, but it was his home - perhaps more like a home than anything he’d had on the surface.

So, he wasn’t lonely. He was just... alone. There was a difference.

After a long moment of staring blankly, he realized that he wasn’t going to get any work done in this state. That was alright. It was only a Wednesday, and he did lunch hours on the weekdays, so he would be able to come in early tomorrow morning and get everything finished up then.

Nodding his head, he decided to do just that. Tossing the rag onto the countertop, he began walking back to the front to lock the door, when -

“GRILLBY HOLY FUCK!”

The door flew open, smashing into the fragile plaster and leaving a sizable dent.

“Oh,” Grillby said mildly, studying the monster that had just kicked open his door. “Welcome back, Gaster.”

The monster who, by all accounts, was holding some kind of _child_.

Seemed that Grillby wouldn’t be able to head up to bed just yet.

…

“I did - I did a bad,” you tried to explain, flailing helplessly. “I tried to do a science and instead I did a _bad_ , Grillby, what do I do?”

It had been a long, _long_ time since you’d last felt this helpless, but the way that Grillby had managed to expertly take the child from you and cradle them in his arms was enough to make you feel quite inept.

All of your eloquent language had fled you, nothing but gibberish making its way past your lips.

“It shouldn’t be - but then it did - and it started - crying?? And I doN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH CRYING PEOPLE, IS THERE A PROTOCOL THAT I SHOULD BE INFORMED OF, IS IT DIFFERENT FOR CHILDREN - “

“Gaster.”

“OH GOD AM I SUPPOSED TO FEED IT? WHAT DO CHILDREN EAT? ARE MILKSHAKES ACCEPTABLE, BECAUSE THAT’S THE ONLY THING I HAVE IN MY FRIDGE RIGHT NOW - “

“Gaster!” Grillby snapped, his flames rising higher for a split-second to grasp your attention.

“YES?” you said, barely managing to hold back your flood of anxious babbling.

“I can’t understand you,” he said patiently. “I understand if you don’t feel up to speaking Common, but if you want me to know what’s going on, you have to at least speak in Hands.”

You froze, feeling an embarrassed blush lighting up your cheeks. You hadn’t even noticed that you’d slipped into WingDings.

_Horrible. Terrible. Useless._

You took a shaky breath, increasing your magic flow and trying to calm down. Come on, now. You were the Royal Scientist, one of the most powerful beings in the Underground, and far too old to start falling into hysterics at the first sign of trouble.

You shouldn’t have bothered Grillby with this. You’re only troubling him, you’re just making everything worse, why are you so _useless_ -

“Doc,” Grillby said, still so gentle (more gentle than you would ever deserve). “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“Ah... Yes, if you would be so kind,” you said, folding your hands in front of you as you attempted to keep yourself from staring at the now-sleeping child. “I would greatly appreciate your input on this matter.”

Grillby let out an amused puff of steam, gesturing to one of the booths. The two of you sat down, on opposite sides, as you tried to figure out how to explain this.

After a moment of thought, you decided to just give a basic explanation. Just enough to ask for his help, anyway.

“At the lab, we are currently searching for ways to break the barrier, without the use of human souls,” you explained, quickly getting into your ‘lecture’ mode. “But the soul power of monsters simply isn’t enough to make any kind of headway in this manner. So, I had thought to create an artificial soul, one that would have the power necessary to help our goal.”

“Artificial...” Grillby glanced down at the tiny skeleton he was still holding in his arms. “This?”

You faltered. “A-Ah, yes. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to create what I suppose could be described as a clone of myself. It... wasn’t supposed to be sentient, or even aware, but then it started crying and I - “

_I didn’t know what to do._

Grillby merely hummed in reply, still studying the infant.

“Forgive me, Gaster,” he said, “but I would not exactly describe this as a clone.”

You winced. “Yes, that... that probably should have been the first warning sign.”

The child had clear, separated bones, actual phalanges - exposed teeth! You, quite conspicuously, had none of those things.

“What are you going to do now?” Grillby said, lifting his gaze to lock eyes with you. He seemed entirely calm at this revelation, which you held onto desperately in an attempt to keep your own composure.

“I am unsure,” you said, digging your fingers into the palm of your hand. “I came straight here, as soon as it happened.”

Well, right after you stopped breathing into a paper bag, anyway.

“Gaster, I...” Grillby shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. “I don’t know how you didn’t see this coming. You created a _soul_ , clone or not. Of course it would sentient. Why would you ever expect otherwise?”

“It didn’t go through any of the soul development stages!” You exclaimed, tapping your fingers rapidly on the tabletop as you fought to explain. “It didn’t form any type of guardianship bond or soul traits, I made sure of it!”

“Really?” Grillby said wryly. “Because this child looks pretty Patient from where I’m sitting.”

You blinked, not comprehending for a moment, before your eyelights dropped down to where the child was still resting in Grillby’s arms. Just behind its little rib cage, you noticed a soft glow. Light blue; Patience.

 _Shit_.

“Whatever you did, it must have been enough,” Grillby said. “The soul would have simply disappeared, otherwise.”

And of course, Grillby being Grillby, it didn’t sound condescending at all, but you couldn’t help but feel chastised. For a split-second you had the urge to tell him, to say how your body’s natural Determination would have made it possible, how it would have _worked_ if this child had turned out a little less like a monster and a little more like _you_ -

But you couldn’t do it. Despite everything, you still couldn’t bring yourself to tell the truth.

“Well,” you said weakly, “I suppose I didn’t think of that at the time.”

 _Useless_.

“Understandable,” Grillby nodded, still so kind even when you clearly didn’t deserve it. “So, if you don’t know what you’re going to do, what do you want to do?”

What did you want...? Well.

“I suppose I’ll keep them,” you said, faintly bewildered at the prospect. “Skeleton children require certain needs that would be difficult for others to provide. I’ll keep the child until they’re old enough to survive on their own, at least.”

“I see.” Grillby looked at you considerably for a moment. “Do you have a name?”

“What?” You completely blanked out, staring at him listlessly.

“For the child,” he clarified. “Do you have a name you want to give them?”

“Oh, no,” you waved your arms, dismissing the very notion. “The child will name themself, when they’re ready. That’s how you learn their Font, and gender.”

“Alright then,” Grillby said, seeming faintly mystified but accepting it nonetheless.

Fonts were unique to skeletons, and it wasn’t often that an outsider was witness to the discovery, so it was understandable.

“Would you like to hold them?”

And that, was when the panic kicked back in.

“I’m not sure that’s a good - “

“Gaster,” Grillby said, reaching out to place the infant within your grasp. “Hold your child.”

With great reluctance, you did.

The child was still warm, and still utterly terrifying.

And yet, as you held them against your chest, the strangest sensation came over you. The child moved in your grip, nuzzling against your lab coat. Tiny phalanges reached out, tangling themselves in the fabric of your clothes.

Then there was a whisper, a laugh.

**knock-knock.**

Inexplicably, you found yourself answering. _Who’s there?_

**comic.**

_Comic who?_

**comic sans, that’s who!**

The Font flowed into your mind, each letter mapped out with perfect detail.

“Oh,” you said, blinking. “That was quick.”

Grillby burned a little brighter, hand flicking off a quick ‘what?’ sign in question.

“His name,” you said dazedly. “His name is Comic Sans. He told me a bad joke.”

Grillby cracked a grin, the flames of his mouth turning a deep, vivid shade of crimson.

“Seems like you deserve him, then.”

You weren’t so sure. But the one thing you were sure of, is that you wanted to do right by this child. By monsterkind. You wanted them to live, to be free to hope and dream.

“Hello, Sans,” you said quietly, watching hazy white eyelights glance up at you from a tired child. “My name is Doctor WingDings Gaster. It seems that we’re going to be together for quite some time. I hope we get along.”

Grillby’s grin only grew stronger.

“Congratulations, Doctor,” he said, voice crackling like lava seeping through bedrock. “You should be very proud.”

...

After a few more minutes of sitting, staring uncertainly at this actual _life form_ you had managed to accidentally create, you realized that you probably shouldn’t be troubling Grillby any longer.

Thanking him for his help (and his good-nature, seeing as you probably destroyed his door in your panicked state), you left him to head up to bed, and you took a shortcut back to the lab.

As you stepped through the space in-between reality in order to land in your private quarters, you had the fleeting thought that perhaps babies did not like entering a place where reality was at its thinnest.

Luckily, the baby you were holding seemed to be fine with it, only glancing around curiously for a second before apparently deciding that it was too much effort, and nestling back against you for some sleep.

Truly, a strange creature.

Carefully, you placed him down on your bed before stepping back, intending to go find some sort of shirt to wrap him in, but you didn’t manage to go even two feet away before his shrill cries brought you right back.

“I - you - _clothes!_ ” you said helplessly, unsure of how else to explain it. At the sound of your voice, and the baby’s eyelights locked on you once again, he quieted, and weakly held out his small arms.

You let out a tremulous sigh, before climbing onto the bed beside the child, wrapping him in your worn lab coat. This would do for now.

You would figure out the rest in the morning.

...

Further into the laboratory, the other soul remained forgotten, for the moment. It’s pure white soul bobbed gently in the tank, before stilling.

For a split-second, the soul flashed orange. And then, slowly, a body began to form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: okay, what’s my best option here?  
> grillby: care for the child.  
> gaster: ...  
> gaster: okay what’s my second best option.
> 
> come visit me on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! hope you’re enjoying!


	4. the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture

Clarity returned to you slowly, the exhaustion of the previous day forcing you into a much deeper rest than you had anticipated. Carefully, you uncurled yourself from your position next to your lab coat, which was currently being occupied by an impossibility.

You still hadn’t fully processed that. How _could_ you? What could you possibly do, or say?

At this point, you were simply going with your gut, which was rather difficult - seeing as you were a skeleton, and therefore did not actually have any guts.

You sat up, rubbing tiredly at your eye-sockets. The child - Sans - was still fast asleep, seemingly without a care in the world. For a moment, you actually contemplated joining him, which was clearly a testament to how insane this child had already driven you - but then you heard it.

“Tra la la, tra la la...”

_There was someone else was in the room._

You shot up out of the bed, magic already sparking from your fingertips, to see a robed figure humming carelessly to themself. They appeared to be rummaging through your files, not at all bothered by your violent wake-up call.

“Ugh,” you groaned, allowing the defensive magic to dissipate. “River, what are you doing here? How did you even get in?”

Well, perhaps that was a silly question. The River Person always found a way to get in, no matter the time or place. It had been useful during the war, but now you just found it infuriating.

“There once was a man, who had a brilliant plan,” the River Person began, still not shifting to look at you. “He would create a way to open the gate, and freedom would be at hand.”

You stilfed a yawn. You’d never much been a fan of River Person’s little games, and _especially_ not after the day you’d had yesterday.

“But all was not well, as the story goes, and he created something entirely different.”

Would it be rude to (literally) kick someone out of a building? Because you were seriously contemplating it.

“His experiments a failure, he fell into despair. And fell, and fell, and fell.”

There was silence, for a moment. That seemed to be the end of it.

“Delightful,” You said. “Really. Always wonderful to hear from you, River. Now, is there a reason you’re rifling through my stuff at - “ you took a second to check the time on your watch, “ - six o’clock in the morning?”

“Time doesn’t wait and neither will I, Doctor,” River Person said serenely. Their invisible hands continued to flip through papers and documents, evidently searching for something.

“Well, what do you want?” You said, struggling to keep your irritation at bay. River Person was quite possibly the exact opposite of you, and one of the most sincerely aggravating people you’d ever met.

You would never understand why the other monsters had come to view River Person as ‘wise’ and ‘knowledgeable’. All they did was spit out vague prophecies and half-hearted rhymes.

Honestly, you had hated working with them during the war days, you definitely didn’t want to do it _now_.

“To help you,” they said calmly.

Before you could stop yourself, you let out a loud snort. You quickly covered your mouth, as if you could pluck the sound out of the air and take it back. While it was true that you and River Person had never really gotten along, there was no need to be rude about it.

On the bed, Sans stirred, causing you to freeze. Luckily, the child only grumbled for a moment before turning over, snuggling back into the small cot.

Was it just your imagination, or was he... bigger?

Completely forgetting about the intruder in your personal lab, you strided over to Sans, reaching down to pick him up. He whined, clearly unhappy about the movement, but settled against you easily enough.

You could tell, just by holding him, that he was at least a few pounds heavier. You’d neglected to fully measure him the day before, but you already noticed how much he’d grown.

You stood there for a minute, staring down at the child still wrapped up in your dingy lab coat, and felt a sense of despair well up inside you. What had you been thinking, attempting something like this? And to _keep_ the child?

What good would come of it? You had absolutely no idea what you were doing. Any insight you had from your own childhood would be rendered obsolete thanks to the differences in your genetics, and you had very little knowledge of childcare in general.

Perhaps it would be better if you -

“Doctor,” the River Person interrupted your line of thought, drawing your attention back to them. “Be very careful of what you choose, here. It will determine your fate - for better, or for worse.”

“Oh, what do you know,” you retorted, too angry and tired and scared to even think about censoring your language. “Rattle off all the predictions you like, soothsayer, but it won’t change anything.”

River Person was silent, their hood finally turning to look in your direction. Of course, you could see nothing but an unending darkness, but they seemed to be staring directly at you. They folded their arms over their chest, leaning back against the file cabinet and examining you.

“What?” You snapped, unable to bear another second of this stiff atmosphere. In your arms, Sans fussed for a moment, and you absently soothed him as you continued to glare at your old comrade.

“You’re a good man, W.D. Gaster,” River Person said, finally, causing you to blink in surprise at the non-sequiter. “Or you were, or will be. Regardless, here, in this exact place and time, you are a good man. Despite our differences, I don’t want you to lose that.”

“What exactly are you saying?” you said warily, clutching Sans tighter without any kind of conscious thought.

You still couldn’t see their face, but you had the distinct impression that the River Person was rolling their eyes at you.

“I’m saying that I’ve met plenty of W.D. Gasters,” they said, “and very few that I’ve liked. You still have that kindness buried within you, the inherent goodness that all monsters have. It would do you well to remember that.”

If you hadn’t been holding a baby, you would have thrown your arms up in frustration.

“I don’t really get what you’re trying to say,” you said bluntly. Even when the River Person actually dropped their whole rhyming and prophecy junk, they were still impossible to understand.

The River Person stood up straight, looming over you in their thick, black robe.

“That’s quite alright,” they said. “You’re one of the kinder ones, perhaps, but also one of the denser ones. In time, you will come to understand.”

You really didn’t think so, but decided to keep that thought private.

In your arms, Sans finally stirred, his little eye sockets opening. Hazy white lights appeared within, gazing up at you.

You found yourself so entranced, you almost didn’t notice the way River Person chuckled at the two of you.

“Perhaps I’m not needed after all,” they remarked, somewhat musing. They reached out, and you nearly flinched at the way you could feel an invisible hand pat you on the head. “You have a soul built on desperation, W.D. Gaster, and a very lonely heart. Maybe in this life, it will actually do you some good.”

You scowled, stepping back. You weren’t sure quite what that meant, but it seemed patronizing.

“Yes, well, thank you very much, River,” you bit out. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

 _Not_. You specifically made sure to never remember anything that River Person told you. Spite was a wonderful motivator.

The River Person gave off the impression of an indulgent parent - you could nearly sense the smile they must have been giving.

“Good,” they said. “Because I’m sure Toriel and Asgore will love to hear about it.”

“What?” You said faintly. “Hear about _what?”_

“The new additions to the family,” River Person said innocently. “I informed them of your lovely children before coming here. No doubt, they will want to see you shortly.”

That was it. Your temper boiled over, a harsh tirade of WingDings escaping your mouth.

“How dARE YOU INTERFERE IN MY AFFAIRS LIKE THAT YOU FUCKING - “

The River Person just giggled, stepping backwards and vanishing from sight with a parting; “Tra la la...”

Sans whined, grabbing your attention and causing your jaw to click shut. He seemed confused, and you got the vague impression that he didn’t understand why you were yelling.

You cringed at the realization, letting out a shaky breath. You tried so hard to be professional, to be _controlled_ , but ever since this child had come into your life, you had been a complete and total wreck.

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. You could only imagine what the future would bring.

...

Ficus whistled to himself, strolling through the labs. He was glad to be inside, and finally out of Hotland’s oppressive heat. As an amphibious type of monster, he didn’t deal too well with the natural temperature of this area, but it was worth it.

Anything was worth it to work with Doctor Gaster.

Ficus could still remember that first day, the day when he’d found his calling. It was only a little into the War, and his clan was slowly being picked off. They weren’t fighters, and they couldn’t heal. They were just innocent monsters, trying to live their lives.

But the humans couldn’t accept that. If a monster existed, they were the enemy. That’s the first lesson he had learned at the hands of those mortal mages.

He’d thought that he was going to die. Many monsters did.

But then... _he_ came.

Doctor W.D. Gaster, a one man army. The constructions that he called ‘Blasters’ were unstoppable, unkillable, and completely vicious. He had eradicated the humans that were occupying Ficus’s village, and drove off any of the reinforcements that tried to invade.

Ficus, still young enough to be amazed despite his recent trauma, couldn’t help but ask how he’d done it. How it was possible for him to command these mighty beasts he had summoned.

“I created them myself,” the Doctor had replied. He’d given Ficus a gentle, if awkward smile, and then proceeded to outline the process of making the blasters, and the magic required.

Even if Ficus hadn’t truly understood a word the man said, it was still exhilarating. At that moment, he knew - he wanted to follow this man. A love of science and innovation was an important motivator, of course, but Gaster is what set it off.

If Gaster had declined the position of Royal Scientist and decided to become a simple potato farmer for the rest of his life, Ficus would have _still_ followed him.

They all would.

There was not a single scientist working at the labs who hadn’t had their life personally affected by W.D. Gaster, and not a single one that would betray him for anything. Not that the man himself actually realized it, of course.

For a certified genius, he was rather dense.

But that was alright. As long as Ficus and the other scientists were there to pick up the slack, nothing would happen. They all took turns checking up on him, caring for him, making sure that he never took his love of science farther than what his body could withstand.

Usually the morning wake-up was left to Goss, but since they had promised to let Gaster have some peace for a while, the rest of them had taken up the mantle.

No doubt, he would still be in the lab with the specimen, waiting anxiously. Seeing as he hadn’t called anyone and started rambling excitedly, Ficus could only assume that the specimen was taking longer to be ready than they thought it would. It was a rather inexact science, which was the most dangerous kind, so Ficus thought that he was justified in the way he sped up as he saw the lab door approaching.

“Doctor, how is everything - “ he trailed off, realizing that there was no one in the room. “Oh.”

Wandering over to the specimen table, he looked at the tall glass tube.

“The Doctor should really be in here,” he muttered to himself, peering through the murky liquid. “This thing looks like it’ll be ready at any second.”

“What was that?” SixOne said, stepping into the lab only a moment later.

“The specimen,” Ficus said, nodding toward it. “I think it’s ready, but Doctor Gaster isn’t around.”

SixOne came over, his ears laying backwards against his head the second he realized what he was looking at.

“That’s not the right specimen!” he said frantically.

Ficus paled. “What?”

Just as the two began to panic, a beeping sound came from the moniter. The specimen was ready for extraction.

Ficus looked to SixOne, already about to hyperventilate, only to see that his friend and labmate had fainted.

“Oh, _shit...”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> river person: hey, i’m here to talk -  
> gaster: fuck you.
> 
> i hope you’re enjoying! come talk to me at my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com).


	5. i alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret

“Children like smoothies, right?” You said to yourself, carefully supervising Sans as he sucked down the puréed fruit. “Yes, of course they do.”

It was fruit. Fruit is healthy. Children loved healthy things, or at least you had as a child. Where had that desire gone, you wondered? Now, all you wanted to eat was crummy junk food and chocolate. But children couldn’t have that (and also, you didn’t like to share), so Sans got a fruit smoothie.

“This is a great idea,” you said aloud, just confirming it to yourself. “Everything will be fine, because I won’t mess this up. Nope, no messing will occur, not on my watch.”

With prompt comedic timing, Sans accidentally tipped over his glass and spilled the rest of his drink everywhere. He then proceeded to cry, _loudly_.

“Perfect.”

…

Meanwhile, Doctor Ficus, renowned scientist and academic genius, was running down the hallways of the lab, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“DOCTOR GASTER!!! WHERE ARE YOU? THERE’S A SKELETON BABY AND THE OTHER ONE IS GONE AND SIXONE IS UNCONSCIOUS AND - oof!“

He was concentrating so hard on yelling out his story that he didn’t watch where he was going, crashing headlong into Suzy, who was just trying to innocently turn the corner. The two of them yelped in surprise, falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

“W-What the heck are you doing?” Suzy cried out, struggling to get to her feet. “There’s a reason we don’t run in the lab, Ficus! What if I was holding samples, or something _explosive_ , or - “

“Speaking of samples!” Ficus cut in, needing to explain his part before she really got going. Suzy was mostly soft-spoken, but her passion for science (and safety) was enough to override any shyness she experienced. “The sample that Doctor Gaster made, it’s done! It’s out! And he’s _not there!_ ”

Suzy gasped, holding her hands to her mouth. “Oh no! Why would he leave it alone? He’s been more intense about this project than anything else I’ve ever seen!”

“Here’s the thing,” Ficus said, waving his arms around exaggeratedly. “It was the other specimen! The one that wasn’t supposed to be ready for weeks! It’s growth suddenly accelerated, and I had to remove it before it could accidentally shatter the tube!”

“Well, _shit_ ,” Suzy said, which made Ficus feel like his initial reaction had been completely justified. “Where is it now?”

Ficus paused for a moment, thinking back. He’d wrapped it in a towel, and then left it on the examination table. SixOne was still in there, just, y’know... unconscious. So it was probably fine, right?

Suzy must have seen something from his expression, because she let out a tired sigh.

“Let’s just go find Gaster,” she suggested, turning to stride purposefully down the hallway. “He probably has the other specimen with him. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”

Ficus fell into step beside her, practically jogging to keep up with the much taller woman’s pace.

“I sure hope you’re right,” he muttered. After all the work that had been put into this, the long nights of research, the agonizing pain the Doctor must have put himself through to get the samples in the first place...

It would be terrible to lose all that.

The two of them made their way quickly through the lab’s winding halls, not bothering to peek into any of the side rooms. Gaster would be in the main labs, or his personal one. He never really went anywhere else.

Actually, Ficus wasn’t sure that the Doctor was really aware that there was other parts of the lab, considering that he almost certainly slept in his personal lab area instead of making use of one of the many guest areas.

It might seem like a strange thing to have in a scientific laboratory, but that wasn’t all this place was. It was also a refuge, in case the very worst was to happen, and another army of humans descended upon them.

The bottom portion of the lab was quite deep, and one of the most well-protected parts of the Underground. All the halls looked the same, too, with dim lighting that was designed to confuse their opponents for as long as possible.

The scientists spent almost all their time here, as well as being around when the place was built, so they could all navigate it without much difficulty, but other monsters had been known to complain about the layout and atmosphere.

It was perhaps a bit eerie, but you got used to it early on, Ficus could guarantee that much. Or at least, it had been that way for him. After all, it was rather hard to be scared of a place where you’d seen Doctor Gaster wander down the hallway half-asleep with a milkshake in his hands.

Somehow, it lost its creepiness factor after that.

The reminder sobered Ficus, forcing him to push himself forwards. They were almost to Gaster’s private lab, and if he wasn’t there... Well. He had no idea what they were going to do.

Luckily, he didn’t have to.

As he and Suzy hurriedly pushed open the lab door, not even pausing to knock like they normally would have, they heard a voice coming from within.

“Doctor, is everything - oh.” Ficus cut himself off, blinking in surprise at the image he was presented with.

Gaster stood there, holding a small skeletal child in one hand, and a half-empty smoothie in the other. He had that certain look on his face, like he knew that he’d fucked up but wasn’t quite ready to admit it.

“Oh, hello,” he said, pretending that he was in complete control of the situation. “Good morning, you two. This is Sans. He is going to be my ward, from now on.”

The two younger scientists stared in disbelief.

“That’s your _son?_ ” Ficus exclaimed, at the exact same moment Suzy yelled; “Did we accidentally make a _kid?_ ”

“...Yes,” Gaster said, which answered exactly nothing. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ficus was worried.

…

You managed to explain everything in short order, making sure to express your apologies on not alerting them earlier. You honestly hadn’t thought about it, with how crazy everything had been.

You were still holding Sans carefully in your arms, and Suzy held out her hands to take him.

“May I?” she said politely.

You allowed her to hold him, though some strange reluctance raced through you at the thought. She studied the child closely, looking him over with a critical and scientific eye.

“He’s definitely bigger than the sample,” Ficus commented, Suzy having leaned down so that he could get a look as well.

“Certainly,” you nodded. “Skeletons develop very fast, even for a monster. As one of the longer-living species out there, they go through the early developmental stages very quickly, and then their growth slows down dramatically. It is likely that he could begin to speak soon, perhaps even within the day.”

“What, seriously?” Ficus said, his eyes wide. “That’s crazy fast! No wonder the other specimen has already grown a body!”

You paused. “...it what?”

“Oh, did I... forget to mention?” he said nervously. “The other specimen is ready. I, um, already extracted it.”

You stood still for a moment, before letting out a deep sigh.

“Alright,” you said aloud. “This might as well happen. Let’s go.”

After Suzy plopped baby Sans back in your arms, the three of you left the lab, heading for the other specimen. Panic was quickly rising once again, but you squashed it down as much as you could. This wasn’t the time for it, especially with your employees in the same room.

Still, some part of you was relieved. At the very least, it meant that you didn’t have to dispose of the specimen like you had been fearing. Once it came to your attention that Sans was, well, alive, you’d had fleeting thoughts of what would happen with the other specimen.

Would the process work this time? Did you want it to? Should you just get rid of it now, before it had the chance to become a problem?

All the options had gone through your mind at a rapid pace, swirling around in a mix of guilt and anxiety. What was the correct choice here? Was it even really that simple?

Now, though, the choice had mostly been taken out of your hands, and you couldn’t help but be selfishly glad of it.

This specimen, whether they turned out to be a child or an asset, would be taken care of. You could make sure of that, at the very least.

When the three of you stepped into the lab, it was to the sight of SixOne holding something in a towel, muttering nervously to himself.

“Oh, hey Doc,” he said, his words rather garbled. “‘s everythin’ okay?”

“It seems I should be asking you that,” you said, approaching the other doctor.

You had to hold back a snort of laughter when you saw the cause of his distress.

A small skeletal hand was reaching out from the towel, grabbing SixOne’s cheek quite harshly. From within the small bundle, you heard a shrill giggle, the occupant clearly enjoying the way SixOne’s cheek could stretch.

Well, you thought ruefully, I suppose that answers that question.

“Suzy, if you would?” You asked politely, offering Sans to her. She took the lab coat that he was wrapped in, freeing up your arms.

SixOne gladly handed the other child over, tugging the small hand free of his face. You glanced inside the bundled towel, examining the child.

 _Oh_...

It was a skeleton, alright. One with a longer skull than Sans, a bit more anatomically correct. It was much closer to your own, actually, except for the fact that the bones were clearly separated. It was... startling, seeing this child. _Your child._

You reached in, gently stroking their cheek. They responded immediately, cooing gently as they leaned into the caress. You felt your non-existent heart melt.

“Hello, little one,” you whispered, acutely aware of all your employees still standing around the room, studiously pretending not to be watching the meeting. “This is quite a surprise, isn’t it? I must admit, I did not expect your brother, and I expected you even less.”

The child gurgled, reaching up to pat your face with their tiny palm.

“Extraordinary...” you said, feeling almost as if you were out of breath.

**PAPYRUS!**

You jerked back, almost tripping over your own feet.

“Doctor!” SixOne exclaimed, reaching out to steady you. “Is everything okay?”

“Ah, yes,” you said shakily. “It was just unexpected.”

“What was?” Ficus said, his head tilted to the side in question.

**PAPYRUS! PAPYRUS! PAPYRUS!**

The child continued to chant within your mind, clapping his hands together gleefully.

“He just told me his Font, that’s all,” you explained absently, trying to rid your head of the ringing from the sudden explosion of sound. “Papyrus. All uppercase, too. Quite an... enthusiastic Font.”

“Okay...?” Ficus said slowly.

“Is it supposed to happen that fast?” Suzy asked quietly. “Finding a, um, font?”

You shrugged. She hadn’t capitalized the word correctly, but you let that slip by. Not many monsters could tell the differences in capitalization like skeletons could.

“It usually happens early, though this is a bit unusual,” you admitted.

“This whole thing is unusual,” SixOne muttered under his breath, nervously trying to smush his cheek back into place.

“Fair enough,” you sighed. Shifting Papyrus to one arm, you reached out and took Sans back from Suzy, holding the two skeleton children in your arms.

Feeling their weight against your body... it was indescribable. Sans was asleep, of course, and Papyrus was babbling to himself in baby speak, but it was still perfect.

“Sir?” Suzy said, drawing you out of your daze. “Are you... okay with this? I mean, what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to take care of them,” you said, blinking in bemusement. Hadn’t you already explained this?

“Yes, I know,” Suzy said gently. “But _how?_ Where will you live? How will you focus on your work with two children to take care of? Are you really prepared for this?”

Well. That was an easy question.

“I’m not prepared for this at all,” you said honestly. On any other day, admitting such weakness in front of your employees would be enough to throw you into a panic attack, but right now, you knew the deserved your honesty. “But I’m going to try.”

Suzy smiled.

“Yeah!” Ficus interjected. “It’s not like you’ll be alone, either! We’re here for you, Doc. No matter what.”

SixOne and Suzy let out sounds of agreement, nodding along.

“Thank you,” you managed to get out, feeling rather choked up.

Somehow, even with two children in your arms, you felt lighter than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: everything is under control!  
> sans & papyrus: *exist*  
> gaster: EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL
> 
> thank you all for reading! wanna let me know what you think/have a question? hit me up on my [tumblr!](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com) <3


	6. succeed to the blooming cheek of life

The situation seemed to calm down from there. You were able to not only quickly inform Dr. Goss of everything that had happened when they arrived for work, but you were also able to run some sorely needed tests.

It was as you had suspected - Sans had gained at least five pounds from when you had first measured him the day before, and Papyrus was already developing rapidly. Most likely, he would be larger than Sans by nightfall, which was an insane thing to think about.

Just the thought of it was almost enough to push you over the edge and straight into a panic attack, but you held it off. You had made your decision here - these were now your children, for better or for worse.

You would be keeping them, and caring for them to the best of your ability. It certainly wouldn't be easy, but you didn't find yourself feeling the same sense of abject terror at the idea as you had before.

Now, there was merely a sense of duty. This wasn't going to be easy. But you were going to do it, no matter what.

You kept that thought running through your mind, holding it close to your soul as you stepped into the throne room.

Sure enough, just as the River Person (that jerk) had said, the King and Queen had sent a formal request for his presence, at 'the earliest possible convenience'. You had no idea what that infernal monster had told them, so you had to jump in and do damage control as quickly as possible.

Sans was awake, surprisingly, and was merely gazing around with curiosity. Papyrus was also awake - to your chagrin. He was a much more energetic child than Sans, and hadn't so much as closed his eye sockets from the second you had taken him into your arms.

At the very least, they had proper clothing now. Suzy had managed to run back to her home and grab some of her younger sister's clothing - the things that were too old and no longer fit her. So, Sans and Papyrus were outfitted in onesies, blue and orange striped respectively.

Their soul traits were shining and true, a beautiful sight of Patience and Bravery for the entire Underground to see. Though the sight of it made something almost like pride run through you, you were actually glad that the glow had been covered. It made you a bit uneasy to see the colors of their souls so bluntly put on display.

That was one disadvantage of being a skeleton monster and having separated ribs - everybody could see right through you.

Your ribs were fused together to form a sort of blank slate, so you had no such issue.

But, still...

Your hands tightened on where you were clutching the children close to you. You were just stalling at this point, and you knew it. You just didn't want to expose the children to _anyone_ right now - not even Toriel and Asgore, who you had named as some of your dearest friends.

Though they were your friends, they were also the rulers of this land. They would do what was best for the kingdom, and in this case, you found yourself unsure of what that would mean.

"Doctor!" Asgore boomed out, arms outstretched as a friendly grin spread across his muzzle. "It has been too long!"

You stopped your advance towards them, tilting your head in befuddlement. "I... _apologize?_ I saw you only yesterday, I wasn't aware that you had need of my presence - "

"Oh, leave him alone, Gorey," Toriel said, rolling her eyes affectionately. She turned to address you, smiling. "You must forgive him, Doctor. Once River Person told us of your coming children, he got so excited by the idea that he just couldn't wait any longer."

"That's quite alright," you said slowly, trying to regain your footing. You really had no idea what was going on here. What _exactly_ had the River Person told them?

"Is that them?" Asgore said, gesturing to the children in your arms (who were being almost suspiciously well-behaved right now). When you nodded, he began to almost bounce on his heels. "Delightful! _Wonderful!_ I'm so glad! Bring them here, come, come!"

You bit back a grin, and followed your king's command, walking up to the two of them and allowing them to view the children. It was... _nice_ , to see Asgore acting this way. It may not exactly be behavior befitting of a King, but it was the Asgore that you remembered. The one that you had followed into battle, the one that you had agreed to entrust your life to.

This was your friend. Not the hollow shell of a monster that he had become upon their banishment to the Underground. You had seen the first part of this side of him emerging the other day, when discussing his own impending child, and it seemed that the sight of more children was enough to allow that portion of his personality to break free.

"Oh, they're _darling_ , Gaster," Toriel murmured, leaning down and allowing Papyrus to latch onto one of her furry ears with a gentle laugh.

She, too, was allowing herself to become more open, once more. She had even forgotten to address you as Doctor, something that you noticed but made no mention of. You had no problem with your friends addressing you by name, even though it seemed like none of them did it these days.

The Underground, the War, had hardened all of you. It was... somewhat gratifying to know that somewhere, deep inside the kingdom of monsters, some softness remained.

"They are a result of my experimentation on breaking the barrier," you admitted. There was no reason to hide it. They deserved to know the truth, it wouldn't be fair otherwise.

The Monarchs glanced up at you then, naked shock on their faces. Then, they shared an unreadable look. Despite having no need for it, you found yourself holding your breath. Was this it? The final straw, the moment they would take the position of Royal Scientist away from you?

You wouldn't blame them if it was. You had failed them, failed monsterkind. And failure was inevitable with scientific discovery, but never quite like this.

"So, these children, they are - " You braced yourself, as if awaiting a blow. " - healthy?"

You blinked. That certainly wasn't what you had been expecting.

"Uh, yes, your majesty," you answered Asgore, still rather caught off-guard. "As healthy as they can be. The development of skeleton children are quite different than most monsters, so we will have to see going forward, but everything seems to be perfectly in order as of this moment."

Then the two of them smiled at you, in that kind and gentle way that always made your soul ache.

"Then I suppose, Gaster, we have only one thing to say," Asgore began, eyes twinkling. "Congratulations."

"Yes, indeed," Toriel said. "It will be nice for Asriel to have some playmates when he is born."

Their easy acceptance made you clear your throat, trying desperately to keep your composure.

"Thank you, Toriel, Asgore. This... your support, I mean... it means a lot to me. _Thank you._ "

Asgore beamed at you, and Toriel merely said; "Anything for a friend."

It was for the monsters like this, all of these kind and loving monsters, that you wanted to break the barrier. And you would - for them, for yourself, for your sons. You would break the barrier, and find a way to show them the sun.

You were Determined.

…

It didn't take you long to realize that a lab wasn't the most suitable place for children. You hadn't really considered it, but then Sans spilled a bunch of nutrient packets all over himself and it only got worse from there.

The obvious solution, then, was to head to Snowdin. You did have a house built for you there, even though you had barely touched it since the lab was built. You didn't even have any idea what condition the place was in, if it was livable for you, let alone two babybones!

But you didn't have much of a choice, in all honesty. Your best bet would be to ask Grillby to look after the children for an hour so that you could assess the damage and clean what you could.

Your scientists had offered to help, of course, but you couldn't drag them away from their work to help you, not even with something like this. Goss had given a very put-upon sigh when you'd said that, but thankfully their vow of 'no nagging' was still in effect, so you were safe for now.

So, with two children in your arms - both of them fast asleep, thank goodness - you opened a shortcut for the edge of Snowdin, in the foggy area where the cold snow met Waterfall's muggy air. Your house was one of the first buildings on the right, so it would be easier to port here and then walk the rest of the way.

And, as you approached, you found yourself glad you did.

There was a crowd of monsters outside of the house, all talking amongst themselves. If you had teleported into the middle of that, there was a chance you could have seriously injured someone, or your children.

Thanking your foresight in the matter, you approached them curiously.

"Is there something going on?" You asked one of the bunnies by the edge of the crowd, absently soothing Papyrus when he began to fuss. "Some kind of event?"

The bunny just giggled, not even looking at you. "Oh, certainly! We're going to be having some new tenants in town soon, so Grillby asked us all to help them get settled in! Isn't he just the sweetest thing?"

You blinked, that strange, warm feeling rising within you again. "Oh? How so?"

"Well, apparently the newcomer has kids, at least one," the bunny said immediately, apparently loving the opportunity to share some juicy gossip. "A couple of my cousins have kids of their own, so they donated a bunch of clothing, bedding, things like that. Ice Wolf helped fix up all the siding on the house and insulated the place to the cold, and PoliBear repaired a bunch of the furniture that was inside. Now, the place is in tip-top shape with everything that a new family could need, and we're just waiting for them to arrive!"

"Well," you said, and paused. You... really didn't know what to say. They had done all this, and they didn't even know who it was for? Grillby had organized it? How had he known that you were planning to return here?

"I will admit that I'm a little worried, though," the bunny said, their ears drooping a bit. "This place used to belong to Doctor Gaster. He must have sold it if someone new is moving in, but we all get a bit concerned about him. He's never around, and when he is, all he does is drink milkshakes and pass out on his front steps! He always says that he isn't affected by the cold, but _still_ \- !"

You cut them off with a muffled chuckle, causing them to turn to you with a scolding expression, only for their eyes to widen comically when they notice who it is that they've been talking to this whole time.

"D-DOCTOR GASTER?" they shouted, gaining the attention of everyone else in the crowd.

"Yes, indeed," you said warmly. You found that your smile came to you a little easier right now. "I hope I'm not intruding."

"Wait - " a nearby slime said, bouncing excitedly. "are you the one moving in, Doctor? Are you really gonna stay in Snowdin?"

"For the time being, at least," you said, addressing them all. "I have to raise my children somewhere, after all, and I can think of nowhere better than here."

There was silence, for a moment.

And then the crowd erupted into cheers, monsters streaming out to meet with you, patting you on the back and cooing over your children.

"We're so glad you'll finally be staying for good, Doctor!"

"Gaster, you old scoundrel! You had us all worried!"

"You better lay off the milkshakes, Gaster! Think of the children!"

All of the congratulations and well-meaning teasing brought a soft feeling to you. You had _missed_ this, missed being among monsterkind.

Grillby managed to push himself through the crowd to you eventually, and you gave him your heartfelt thanks.

".............no problem.........." he said, barely audible. As always, when in larger company, he tended to remain silent, so you felt gratified to receive even that much from him.

"Really, my friend," you said, conjuring another hand specifically for the purpose of squeezing him on the shoulder. "I am in your debt."

He only nodded, fidgeting slightly with his glasses. But he didn't push away from you, remaining comfortingly by your side.

"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!" Another bunny said, this one much younger. The child, still in stripes, raced up to you, carrying something in their hands. "Sorry, I would've given it to you right away, but I had to make an adjustment!"

The child proudly unfurled the banner, allowing you to see what had been written.

In somewhat childish handwriting, it said; WELCOME back TO SNOWDIN!

The 'back' had clearly been a hasty addition, written in tiny letters and slightly above the rest of the sentence.

"Do you like it?" they said, beaming up at him.

"I love it," you said honestly. The townspeople may have stepped in to refurbish your home, but you knew what your first decoration was going to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: what is this feeling...?  
> grillby: happiness, perhaps?  
> gaster: impossible. i’ve never felt happiness before in my life.  
> grillby: that’s depressing  
> gaster: if you say so, my dude
> 
> hey, hey! hope you’re all enjoying. lemme know what you think! come talk to me on [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! remember, i love y’all. <3


	7. until from the midst of this darkness

_Gaster, this isn't enough -_

_You have to do better, Gaster -_

_It's like you're not even trying - !_

_Stop acting so difficult -_

_Why are you such a_ w o r t h l e s s _child -_

...

You woke up in a haze of half-remembered dreams. For some reason, your hands were shaking. You stared down at them blankly, not even comprehending what you were looking at. Your mind was fuzzy, leaving you unable to piece together your thoughts. The holes in your palms began to itch.

Ha. How pathetic.

How _worthless_ you are, to not even be able to do something so simple -

"UP!"

You jolted, tearing your gaze away from your (ruined) hands to see Papyrus crawling towards you. In that moment, your mind was blank for an entirely different reason.

How had he get here from the bedroom? How had he gotten up onto your _bed?_

This was the third time this week that he had done this, and the three of you had only been living in this house for a week!

And what an eventful week it had been. You and the children had settled in easily, the house fully furnished and ready to receive you - which you could not be more grateful for. You really owed Grillby and the other residents of Snowdin a lot for this one.

Papyrus immediately set out to explore the place, of course, while Sans preferred to stay comfortably within your embrace. The younger child had progressed to crawling at an astonishingly fast rate, able to zoom around the house on his own within a couple of hours. You suspected that Sans would be able to do the same - perhaps even walk - if he had ever felt the inclination to do so. Mainly, Sans slept. And you could always tell when he was faking it, because if you tried to put him down in those circumstances he would start crying.

And that was really how your experience had been so far - a lot of crying and yelling. It was... remarkable.

You could still recall the exact moment the two of them began speaking, Papyrus mainly with one-worded demands and Sans with simple sentences that mainly consisted of him asking to be fed or held.

Altogether, not an entirely bad experience. Unlike human children, there was little waste created, so all you really had to do was feed them and interact with them to their satisfaction.

Even that wasn't too difficult. Intelligent though they may be, they were still children. Their wants were simple, and not even Papyrus could keep his energy levels up for long.

It was actually rather... endearing, seeing the way that Papyrus could get so carried away and fall asleep in the middle of playing with his toys. Sans stayed mainly within your hold or on some sort of soft surface, so he obviously felt free to pass out at any time - and he made sure to do so often, and with great relish.

But you had no time to think about that right now.

"UP, UP!" Papyrus yelled, holding out his arms demandingly. Letting out a fond, if weary sigh, you did as he commanded and lifted him into your embrace.

There was the sound of faint snoring coming from the end of the bed, and when you peeked over you saw that Sans was laid out on top of the covers, fast asleep. Why they insisted on doing this every day when they both had perfectly functional beds of their own, was something that you just didn't get.

Besides which, you still had no idea how they always managed to accomplish it! Papyrus had yet to stand on his own, though he would likely progress to that soon, and Sans barely lifted his head off the ground most of the time. How did they get out of bed, down the hallway, and through your locked door?

It was simply baffling, and as a scientist, that feeling was a bit unnerving.

"MORN'!" Papyrus said cheerfully, slapping his tiny hands against your chest.

"Yes, yes, good morning Papyrus," you said tiredly, covering your mouth when you began to yawn. "And how are you today?"

"PLAY!" he said adamantly. Papyrus wasted very little time with pleasantries.

"It's too early to play right now," you tried to explain, only to stop short when his sockets began to well up with orange-tinted tears.

It was _four in the morning._

"We can play later, I promise!" you said hastily, trying to stave off the incoming tantrum.

But Papyrus was having none of it.

"NOW! PLAY NOW!" he screamed, balling up his fists and giving you the fiercest pout you had ever seen in your life.

Unfortunately for your younger son, however, you weren't going to cave this time.

" _No_ , Papyrus," you said firmly. "It's too early. We need to sleep a bit more before we can play, or else we'll have to go to bed early tonight. Do you understand?"

Papyrus only tightened his expression, glaring up at you as best he could. Oh boy, here it comes.

The youngest skeleton burst into loud, wailing cries, flailing around and screaming like he was being murdered. Sans, in response, rolled around in the sheets until he was wrapped up like a little skeleton burrito, blocking out the noise.

Damnit.

You merely sighed, making sure to hold Papyrus steady and not allow him to wriggle out of your grip. You didn't want him to accidentally fall out of the bed as a result of this little fit, after all.

It only took a few minutes of you refusing to react until Papyrus calmed down, sniffling slightly. He let his limbs flop down like a rag doll, slumping in defeat.

"You seem like you tired yourself out," you said gently, though not without some hidden amusement. "Let's take a nap, and then we can play when you wake up, okay?"

Papyrus stubbornly looked away, though he did snuggle closer to you when you brought him under the covers.

Sans freed himself from the blankets and wriggled closer, settling against your chest. With the two children laying on top of you, you managed to drift off easily. Everything else could wait until morning.

...

Papyrus was perfectly content when he woke up again, this time at a more reasonable hour, and didn't fuss even as you nudged the two children into going through their morning routines. Fruit and toast for breakfast, while you blearily gazed into the fridge to find something for yourself. Another milkshake, perhaps...?

Yeah, sure. Why not.

Chugging down your (extremely unhealthy) meal, you thought about what the three of you could do today.

The other scientists at the lab were covering for you, allowing you to take a week off from work as you figured everything out. It made you feel guilty, but Goss had been quick to push you out the door, practically insisting that you not come back for a while.

You were grateful, though. It would have been a huge pain to find someone else to watch over the children while you were working, and you found yourself... hesitant, regardless. You didn't want to leave them alone for that long, even though you knew logically that they would have someone watching and providing for them.

Still, you appreciated the break even when your fingers were itching to start doing some science again. It would come in time.

For now, the children were more important.

You weren't doing anything too strenuous at the lab right now, anyway. The most important project had been the attempts to break the barrier, and well - you know where that ended up. The CORE was the only other thing in development, and that wasn't even past the planning stages yet, so you felt confident in leaving that to your fellow scientists.

So, what did one _do_ with children, exactly? For the past several days, you had mainly been monitoring their development and doing small activities with them indoors. Lots of reading and puzzles, mainly.

Should you take them outside? But to where?

Actually, the answer to that was obvious. It was almost lunchtime, and Grillby ought to have a proper introduction with the children after all this time.

"Sans, Papyrus!" You called out, entering the living room where the two were playing with blocks on the floor. "Want to go out for lunch?"

"OUT?" Papyrus asked curiously, before brightening as the realization came over him. "OUT! OUT!"

A smile was tugging at your lips, and you squatted down to poke Sans's skull. "And what about you?"

Sans looked up at you, blinking lazily.

"where?" he asked simply, moving over so that he could flop himself onto you.

"Do you remember Grillby, the fire elemental?" You asked, continuing when Sans merely nodded. "He has a restaurant and bar. It's not too far away, and it usually has a good amount of monsters in it. It would be good for the two of you to visit. Besides, he makes great food."

Sans thought for a moment, and then shrugged. "'kay."

You shook your head, barely resisting a laugh as the child held out his arms in the universal 'up' gesture. You carefully picked up both children, walking upstairs to get them their hats and coats. Even if they weren't going to be outside for long, it was best for babybones to have some cover from the elements.

For the first time in what felt like forever, you were optimistic about how the day was going to develop.

...

You slumped onto the table at Grillby's, groaning to yourself. "I have made a terrible mistake."

"...............how so.........?" Grillby murmured, the sound barely heard over the noise of the bar.

You didn't bother to lift your head, simply gesturing at the two children on the other side of the booth.

Papyrus, upon eating one of the fries you had bought, had promptly spat it out and started whining. He had actually conjured a tongue specifically to have it stick out and make dramatic gagging noises.

Sans, on the other hand, seemed to have found nirvana. He was shoveling fries in his mouth as fast as possible, and grabbing ketchup by the handful. It had accomplished little expect smearing ketchup all over his clothes and skull, which would've probably looked cute if it wasn't so utterly horrific.

Grillby patted you on the shoulder.

"........cute......." he said in a near-whisper.

You groaned, not at all in agreement. Grillby shook his head, stepping back to go behind the bar, but you could tell that he was smiling, the bastard.

"Papyrus, would you like a milkshake instead?" you said pitifully, hoping to get the finicky child to eat something at least.

For someone who was generally cheerful and easy to please, Papyrus held very high standards when it came to food. There were certain things that he simply _would not eat_ , and greasy foods appeared to be one of them. Now, Sans was actually rather similar in that respect, but it seemed that his taste in foods went the opposite way.

Vaguely, you wondered whether it was a sensory issue of some kind. That would make sense - you didn't remember a whole lot about your father, these days, but you did recall that there were certain textures that he absolutely abhorred. And you were quite the same way - foods that went against your routine or personal tastes were always summarily rejected, which might have something to do with the fact that you usually only ate one meal (milkshake) a day.

In the back of your mind, you vowed to do some tests on this. Perhaps create some supplements that the children could have, something that would give them nutrients without setting off their personal dislikes?

And if you could find a meal that they both liked without issue, that would be even better. Even with their breakfasts it could be difficult - Sans liked his toast to be barely warm, while Papyrus preferred to it be practically charred, and they both liked different kinds of fruit and juice.

Parenthood had certainly been an experience so far. It was almost like an experiment, to be honest. Except with much higher stakes than any other one you had undertaken.

Dragging yourself back to the present, Papyrus grudgingly accepted the milkshake that was handed to him, eyeing it mistrustfully. Sans paid none of them any mind, continuing to gobble down his food like some kind of tiny gremlin.

The low murmur of voices washed over you, and you leaned back in the booth, letting your eyelids flutter closed for a moment. You hadn't realized how much you missed this until you finally came back.

In the early days, before the lab was finished, you spent most of your time in Snowdin. The people, the atmosphere... it was all so lovely.

You were glad that you could share that with your children, even if it took a bit of work to get them to accept it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sans: *teleports to grab more ketchup when gaster's back is turned*  
> gaster: hey, how did you get that?  
> grillby, who saw everything: ...  
> gaster: a mystery.
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying! thank you so much for the support. the boys are gonna have a lot of fun tormenting our poor gaster, so look forward to more babybones cuteness in the coming chapters! and hey, wanna chat/have a question? come hit me up on [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! i love to talk to you all, believe me <3


	8. a sudden light broke in upon me

"I WANNA PLAY!" Papyrus demanded loudly. "PLAY NOW!"

Was this deja-vu? You could have sworn that this just happened.

"I know, Papyrus," you said, clutching his mitten-covered hand close to your own. "You'll be able to play shortly, I just need to introduce you and your brother to my employees."

Papyrus let out a happy chattering noise at that, his bones vibrating intensely. To contrast that, Sans simply yawned, slumped over dramatically. He was nearly being dragged along by your grip on his hand, his feet only touching the ground every other step.

Sans had not wanted to leave the house this morning, which was a huge difference than normal. Usually, he was quite happy to go along with whatever was happening, and Papyrus was the one who disliked changes in the routine.

But this time, it really couldn't be helped. Your vacation week was over, and it was time to head back into work. Now, some part of you was truly excited about this. You had missed the structure and dedication of your workplace, and your fellow scientists as well. None of them had the time to visit with how busy things had become in your absence, which meant that you had imposed a great deal on Grillby, much to your embarrassment.

It had been nice, though, to spend that time with him. It reminded you of all the things you had once thought lost to you - friendship, being the main one. It was pretty crazy to look back and see how much your viewpoint had changed in such a short period of time.

Is that what children did? _Fascinating._ You were really starting to see the appeal.

And you felt that appeal even more with every day that passed. Sans and Papyrus had progressed even faster than you had projected, both of them now able to walk without issue, though Sans seemed determined to disprove that at every opportunity. They had also both grown in size, with Papyrus remaining almost a foot taller despite his slightly younger age.

You had been a bit worried about that, to be honest. Sans was an experiment, though you found yourself feeling uneasy in referring to him that way. Who knows what could go wrong?

That was partly why you were bringing them into the lab today. Grillby had offered to watch over them while you were at work (with the dog squad agreeing vocally in the background - they were very fond of the bones that you conjured for them, and seemed to view the children as 'weird, sharp puppies'), but you had politely declined, explaining that you wanted to take this opportunity to make arrangements for them.

After all, you wouldn't be able to dump them on Grillby all the time - that would be simply irresponsible. And while they would soon be developed enough to go to school with the other monster children, you found yourself hesitating on that front. They may be mentally and physically developing at an extraordinary rate, but you didn't want to push them too fast.

They had only really existed for less than a month, at this point. You weren't that eager to get rid of them.

"Ready for a shortcut?" You said, deciding to get this over with before you could get caught up in your melancholy and distract yourself any further.

"YEAH!" Papyrus cheered, even though you were fairly sure he had no idea what you were talking about.

"mhm," Sans nodded, eyelids fluttering shut as he slumped fully against you.

You huffed in amusement, but let him get away with it. He would have to be a lot more active than he was used to once he got to the lab, so you would allow him this last respite.

Carefully, you pulled on your magic, stepping forward and through the boundary of time and space without a second thought, keeping a tight grip on the children. For a split-second, there was only darkness. And then, heat, as you emerged outside of the lab in Hotland.

When you took a moment to see how the boys were doing, you noticed the way Papyrus was uncharacteristically silent. To your concern, he was shivering, but he seemed to shake it off easily enough and returned to his normal boisterous nature. Sans, as before, showed no reaction except a mild curiosity at the new location.

What an interesting difference that was. Was it a precursor to the abilities they might inherit from you? And, my, what a strange word that is; 'inherit'.

You had never imagined that such a word would apply to you. It was still rather astonishing to think about.

"This is the lab," you explained, walking with the two children to the entrance. "I work here as the Royal Scientist. This is also where you were created."

Papyrus oohed and ahhed as you made your way through the building, bounding around excitedly and chattering away a mile a minute. Sans remained by your side, though for once, it didn't seem to be out of any particular laziness.

No, he had transitioned to holding your hand very tightly, walking fully of his own accord. His eyesights darted around, and he studied the dreariness of the lower levels with a cautious eye.

Oh, dear. What should you say in this circumstance? What would be the right thing to ease his worries?

"You need not fear, Sans," You said quietly, your expression a bit stiff as you fought to express yourself in the manner you were intending. “I know this place, and there is nothing here to harm you. And if there ever should be, I will protect you, to the best of my ability.”

He looked up at you, and there was something in his gaze that almost made you shy away.

It felt like he was looking _through_ you.

Like he was seeing straight into every horrible thing you had ever done, the wicked thoughts you'd made into words, the actions fueled not by logic; but by cruelty and hatred.

It felt, in that moment, that Sans could see the very worst part of you. The part that was fed by Determination and left you bleeding red.

But a second later, the feeling passed, and Sans nodded, leaning his skull against the side of your leg.

"i know, g," he said, just as quiet as you. "I trust you."

You turned to face forwards, continuing your journey without comment. Trust? Ha...

_‘I know you trust me. Maybe you shouldn't.’_

Sans had started to call you that recently - within the last few days, actually. He knew from the time spent with the regulars at Grillby that your name was Gaster, so he had taken to calling you variations of that name. Papyrus rarely addressed you directly, choosing mainly to boss you and his brother around without once even mentioning your names.

You didn't mind. It solved the problem of what they would call you, anyway.

('Father', somehow, felt... wrong. Almost like a betrayal, or an _omen._ Either way, being called father was the last thing that you had wanted.)

"Stay close, Papyrus," you called out, instead of addressing the elephant in the room. "We're almost there, and I don't want you wandering off before you get a chance to meet them."

"OKAY!" Papyrus said cheerfully, waddling back over to your side and grabbing your free hand.

Resisting a smile, you brought the two children to the door of the meeting room, pausing only when you began to hear noises filtering out from the other side. Was that _yelling..._?

"WHY STOP?" Papyrus said in a confused tone, looking up at you with a frown and trying to tug you forward. "ALMOST PLAY TIME!"

You were about to explain your hesitance, feeling oddly defensive about it, but Sans cut you off by stepping forward as well.

"might as well," he shrugged when you glanced at him in question. "got this far already. besides, paps is right. it's almost play time."

You huffed, eyes fluttering closed for a moment as you gathered your nerve. There was nothing to be concerned about, you knew this. These were your scientists, and if you could trust them with your life and well-being (as you had many times during the War), then you could trust them with even this basic understanding of your children.

"Of course," you said wryly, letting go of Papyrus to pull the door open. "How could I forget?"

Papyrus immediately raced inside, announcing himself proudly. "HELLO! I'M PAPYRUS!"

You followed him, unable to prevent a small snort of amusement. It reminded you of that very first interaction, when Papyrus had told you his font. Though at least this time you'd had some measure of forewarning.

"Hello, Papyrus," the scientists all chorused dutifully, before another voice spoke out.

"Woah, PAPYRUS? That's a SUPER cool name!" They shouted, catching your attention as you swept your eyes over the monsters gathered in the room.

The shout seemed to have come from a small aquatic-type monster, with blue scales and a bright red ponytail. Ah, you knew who this was.

"Hello there," you nodded, trying to hide your naturally stiff manner. "You must be Undyne, Doctor Suzy's younger sister. I am Doctor Gaster, and - "

"Are you his dad?" She interrupted, pointing to Papyrus, who was wandering around the room and prodding at each of the scientists in curiosity.

You could feel your cheekbones beginning to flush with color, and struggled to think of what to say. Luckily, Suzy seemed similarly mortified and slapped her hand against her face with a groan.

"I-I'm sorry Doctor," she stuttered, her own scales coloring in embarrassment. "G-Gerson wasn't able to watch her today, and when I told mother that you would be coming in with your children, she insisted that I should - "

"That's quite alright, Doctor," you said, waving off her concerns. "As always, I have no problem with guests, so long as they remain out of the restricted areas. And, besides..."

The two of you watched, bemused, as Papyrus finally made his way over to Undyne. She grabbed his hand when he approached, pulling him in close to whisper with an urgent look on her face.

You caught only a few words of their exchange, something about 'mazes' and 'adventure'. That would end well, no doubt.

But Undyne was grinning so wide you could see every one of her sharp teeth, and Papyrus was beaming even more than usual. Sans, when you casually glanced down at him, seemed perfectly content, and was watching the interaction with a fond glint in his eyelights.

"Besides, this seems like a wonderful idea," you concluded, smiling at Suzy. "I'm happy that I'll finally be able to meet the proud little warrior that you speak so fondly of."

Suzy blushed, this time in mostly happiness and only a little bit of embarrassment. Letting go of Sans, you ushered him over to the other children, where he went with only a token protest.

You watched the three of them for a moment, something soft and sweet curling in your nonexistent gut, before you turned to address your team.

"Alright, what have you all been working on in my absence?"

...

For the next hour, you all simply took the time to catch up, recording any advancements or breakthroughs that had occurred while you were gone. It wasn't necessarily the most fun part of your job, but you found yourself enjoying it more than usual today.

Somehow, it felt different. Sitting at the table and observing everyone's antics had a different flavor to it than it did before.

Goss, as always, was prodding at anyone who was quiet for too long, making sure that everyone contributed equally, and was also taking the time to watch over the children with a careful eye. Suzy, having relaxed finally, was passionately debating her point on the possible functions of heat panels for the citizens of the Ruins, who didn't have the benefit of a fire elemental nearby to help them stay warm. Ficus, of course, was egging her on every time she began to speak a little more calmly, getting her more and more fired up. SixOne, ears pinned back against his head, only laughed nervously. You could sympathize - even for an experienced debater such as yourself, it could be intimidating to be on the other end of Suzy's rants.

Undyne, Papyrus, and Sans had kept to themselves in the corner of the room, almost suspiciously so. You couldn't help but feel cautious about it. Though the boys were relatively well-behaved, they were not above mischief, and Undyne certainly wasn't.

This could only end well. If you kept repeating that to yourself, it would have to be true, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: what a calm, pleasant, nondestructive afternoon this is going to be  
> papyrus & undyne: lol just wait
> 
> anyway, hope y'all are enjoying! the kids are pretty much going at full-force now, so we'll be entering the next arc soon. just a couple of things left, then it will be full sans & papyrus antics! pray for gaster, lol. wanna chat/have a question? hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love you all <3


	9. a light so brilliant and wondrous

Papyrus and Undyne had become great friends, to your relief - and also great misfortune. There wasn't a day going by where the two of them didn't insist on getting together and causing mischief.

A part of you was relieved. Not only was Papyrus getting more interaction with other children, but his speech and fine motor skills had increased greatly since he had begun to spend time with the young aquatic monster. It seemed that being around her had enabled him to... _emulate_ her, somewhat. You still weren't quite sure of the specifics, but it was a fascinating phenomenon, to be certain.

Sans went with them some days, but mostly contented himself by staying at your side. Sometimes he would wander around and see what the other scientists were up to, but he mainly stayed in your lap, dozing off as you worked on the paperwork that had piled up in your absence.

It was... nice, really. And it actually changed the way you worked around the lab. You had to be a bit more careful now, aware that an impressionable young child was in the room with you. You didn't dare to attempt any of your more dangerous experiments as long as Sans was there, and that might've actually been for the best.

He had also managed to get you onto a more regular eating schedule, which was a miracle in and of itself. You still didn't eat much besides milkshakes, because _why would you eat anything else_ , but after a few days of Sans insisting that he wanted to eat lunch with you, you began to fall into a pattern.

No more crazy experiments that were likely to take your head off. No more going without food for days on end, caught up in one thing or another. No more sleeping in your messy lab, no more falling asleep in your lab coat (because Papyrus would refuse to go to bed unless everyone was wearing their pajamas, and thus 'not having all the fun without him').

So much of your life had changed, and it had happened in what felt like such a short amount of time that it near gave you whiplash.

But... you were okay with it. This wasn't the way that you had expected your life to go, but you were certainly satisfied with where it was heading. After all, who else could say that they were the (parent) guardian of such wonderful, intelligent children? No one, that's who.

Ficus had begun teasing you, saying that your eye sockets would light up with stars when you spoke to them about the children, but you dismissed that as ridiculous slander. You had never witnessed such a thing in your life, not even on the surface when you had encountered a couple of other skeleton monsters while traveling with your father.

At the same time, however, no one had been particularly happy during that period, so his words may have more merit than you first suspected. Papyrus could do some logic-defying feats when he wanted to, and Sans was an incredibly sneaky child. Changing the shape of one's eye lights was probably simple compared to that.

The reminder of your father was like a kick in the chest. It had been so long since you had last thought of him - at least, in any capacity besides how disappointed he would be in you if he could see what you had become.

You had spent so long, struggling to breathe under the pressure he had left behind with his death, and it wasn't really until now, when you could think of the adventures you'd had with him _despite_ the pain it left behind, did you think that you were finally beginning to heal.

That was what they had done for you - that was what _your children_ had done. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but your mindset had undergone a marked difference from when you had first started the experiments to break the barrier.

You were proud of it. You _liked_ the way you were now, you liked these changes and you loved your children -

"Um, Doctor?" SixOne said, his ears pinned back against his head. "There's a, uh, I mean, a-at the front, there's - "

He paused, taking a deep breath. You turned to face him, waiting patiently. It was difficult for him, sometimes, to get the words out of his mouth, but you knew better than to cut him off and try to answer the question without the full knowledge of the situation.

"There's a royal messenger at the front, someone from New Home," he said after a moment, shoulders relaxing as he actively attempted to calm himself. "They asked for your presence immediately. It seemed quite urgent."

"I see," you frowned, standing up from your desk. Then, a second later, you froze. Before the experiment, you would have never worried about something like this, but...

"Don't worry, sir," SixOne said hastily, apparently having seen where your mind had gone. "Suzy said that she was fine to take Papyrus and Sans for the night if it ended up being too late. She said it would be a fun sleepover, I guess."

"Ah, right, of course," you said, caught slightly off-balance. Did you really want to leave the kids behind, and so early, too?

Of course, you didn't have much of a choice right now.

"Alright," you said, nodding decisively. "I'll just go say goodbye, and then head out to the palace. You can go ahead and return to work, Doctor."

He smiled, tremulously, and agreed.

...

"I _will_ come back to you, as soon as I am able," the Doctor said, holding their gaze intently.

Sans merely nodded, keeping a calm outer appearance. Even only a week into his existence, he had realized that the more emotion he showed, the more flustered Gaster became. At least, when it was any kind of panicked, or uneasy emotion.

So even though Sans _was_ feeling rather panicked and uneasy, he kept it to himself. His brother, of course, started cheering immediately, just excited to be spending more time with Undyne and not really thinking through the consequences of leaving their creator behind.

Sans tried as best he could to emulate his brother's good nature, pasting on a smile for when Gaster studied him intently. For a guy that couldn't tell that his entire group of scientists would die for him without question, he could be annoyingly observant sometimes.

"have fun, g," he said, instead of voicing any of his worries. It would probably be fine - Suzy was responsible, at the very least. However, she did tend to get overwhelmed by Undyne and Papyrus's combined energy...

Nah. It would be okay. Sans would make sure of it.

"Alright," Gaster relented, still looking a bit uncertain, but even more relieved. "If you need me, let Suzy know and I will find a shortcut to you as fast as possible. Otherwise, listen to her and her mother, be kind, and please don't cause them _too_ much trouble."

"NOT TOO MUCH?" Papyrus said curiously.

Sans snickered, having easily translated the meaning behind his brother's words. "yeah, does that mean that we can cause them a _little_ trouble?"

" _Very_ little," Gaster said dryly, but his mouth was twitching up into a small and lopsided smile. Sans liked it best when their guardian was smiling - it made his entire face seem softer. "Have fun."

"WE WILL!" "okay, but only a little."

With that one final tease, Gaster left the lab, likely shortcutting straight to the palace as soon as he got outside.

Sans had yet to master being able to move that far - he could only manage the length of their house on a good day. Gaster could probably help him develop his abilities further if he ever asked, but Sans rather liked the idea of figuring it out on his own.

Besides, seeing Gaster's utter befuddlement whenever he managed to pull off one of his pranks was well worth the trouble. Papyrus had abilities in a similar vein, though even Sans was unsure of the extent of it.

Papyrus just seemed to do whatever he wanted, even if it defied the laws of physics. Like right now, for example.

In his excitement at getting to see his awesome new friend, Papyrus jumped into the air and bounded across the room to where Suzy was packing up the last of her things, apparently completely unaware that he was even off the ground.

"GO NOW?" Papyrus said, tugging on the sleeve of her lab coat. "GO PLAY NOW?"

Sans chuckled, taking a small shortcut to the doctor's side when she wasn't looking. For some reason, Papyrus's speech hadn't developed in the same way as his, though Sans and Gaster could typically understand what he meant.

Having heard Gaster grumble something about 'Fonts' and 'how unfair it is to be unreadable', he had asked if that could be why Papyrus simply did not develop the ability for typical speech as of yet. Gaster had only shrugged, as baffled as Sans.

Skeleton children developed faster than almost any other breed of monster, but Gaster had said that perhaps his influence in their creation had caused some delay - for Papyrus, his speech, and for Sans, his physical form.

Sans was a runt, that was for sure; a tiny stature, and awful HP to go with it.

Gaster said that he would gain more as time went on, but he hadn't seemed entirely certain. Which, to be honest, was not incredibly motivating.

Still, Sans let it all wash over him.

He was just fine the way he was - Papyrus, too. It didn't matter that they didn't develop completely like 'normal' babybones. They were exactly how they were meant to be.

Sans did wonder, of course, what Gaster could have done to cause such changes in their biological structure. Were they, perhaps, a hybrid species with some other, slower-developing monster? It would make sense.

Gaster, obviously, was some kind of hybrid. Despite the fact that his body was clearly made of bone, nothing could hide that he wasn't 'right'. He had lips, for one. Skeleton monsters did not have lips.

Sans theorized that he was a mixture with some kind of bat monster, or perhaps an elemental of some sort. It would explain a lot of things, such as why he could always understand Grillby, even when the bartender wasn't speaking Common.

But at the same time, there was plenty of other possibilities for that. Perhaps his knowledge of 'Fonts' allowed him to translate words easily? Hm... An interesting hypothesis, and most certainly one that was worth investigating. Perhaps he could wrap Gaster into playing a game with him and Papyrus, and while the scientist was busy he could go through his notes?

No, no. That would never work. But, perhaps if he -

"Sans?" Suzy said gently, kneeling down so that she wasn't at such an intimidating height. If Sans thought that his ~~(dad)~~  creator was tall, Suzy was a giant. "It's time to head back. The River Person has kindly agreed to ferry us to the port near my house. Come on!"

Trotting along, Sans quickly kept up with the two of them as they headed to the boat dock. The River Person was there, as usual, though Sans had never gotten more than a quick glimpse of them before. Gaster always grumbled and pulled him away if he tried to go into this area.

Within minutes, the three of them were situated in the boat, Papyrus and Suzy chatting happily while Sans tried to close his eyes and catch some z's. Sure, the boat ride was never more than a few minutes long, but a guy can _dream_ , can't he? Heh, heh.

(At one point, he cracked open his eyes to see the River Person's dark hood staring directly down at him. Sans thought that he saw the slightest flash of a mischievous grin, but quickly decided that he would rather have not seen anything, and would be doing his best to convince himself of that.)

As they arrived at Waterfall and stepped off the boat, a voice called out to them.

"Suzy! Suzy!"

An aquatic monster ran over, a young woman with a large clam shell. "Back from work already, eh?"

Suzy laughed a little, the scales on her cheeks flushing darker. "Uh, yeah. Got the offer to go home early with these two rascals, so..."

"Understandable," the girl said agreeably, before focusing on the two of them as a wide smile stretched across her face. "Hello, it's so lovely to meet you! Suzy is my neighbor's daughter, and she's a very good friend to have. Wouldn't you agree!"

"YEAH!" Papyrus cheered, throwing his arms up into the air. It didn't seem like he was paying much attention, but if there was anything that Papyrus knew how to do, it was perform.

"she's great," Sans agreed wholeheartedly. Suzy was nice, and kind, and always helped explain things to them. She was a very good friend indeed.

The clam woman beamed. "Oh, I'm so happy to hear that! I'll let you go on, now, but remember - "

She spun around, giving them a coy wink. "Stay friends with Suzy, and many wonderful things will happen. You have a neighbor's blessing!"

Heh. Maybe Sans would like this sleepover after all.

...

"Doctor, we're so glad you're here. Look!"

"Isn't he perfect?"

"...He's wonderful, your majesties. You should be proud."

"Oh, we are already."

"Yeah, just you wait. One day, he's gonna save this kingdom. He'll bring freedom to us all, I just know it."

_"Our precious Asriel..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asgore & toriel: this child is going to be our future!  
> gaster: yep. i have only good feelings about this.
> 
> well, we're officially starting to move into the next arc! i hope you're all enjoying, and please let me know what you think! wanna chat/have a question? hit me up on [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all. <3


	10. yet so simple

Papyrus knew a lot of things. He knew, for instance, that his brother had trouble seeing out of his right eye, and slept all the time because it still never seemed to give him enough energy. He knew that Grillby was lonely, even if he didn't want to admit it. He knew that the scientists at the lab adored their boss, and would be willing to kill in order to protect his safety.

He knew that Gaster didn't want them to call him father. He knew that Gaster hadn't meant to create them at all.

It was a burden, sometimes. That he knew so much. But it was his burden to bear, and Papyrus had decided on that in only the first few days of his existence. It had only taken that long for him to realize that there would be no point in trying to fix anything. Not yet, anyway.

Papyrus may have been very smart, and very amazing, but for now, there was still only so much that he could do. So; that's what he did.

He made sure that Gaster got up every morning, at relatively the same time to make sure that his schedule evened out. He allowed Sans to get some more sleep, and made sure that Gaster kept himself occupied so that he wouldn't get distracted and try anything crazy.

It wasn't a perfect plan, he could admit, but it was a very great one! Just like him, the Great Papyrus!

(While it hadn't occurred to him, the whole thing would seem very strange from an outsider's perspective. Honestly, Papyrus was lucky that Gaster had absolutely no idea what he was doing when it came to childcare, as a more knowledgeable caretaker likely would have noticed this strangeness right away.)

"NYEH-HEH-HEH," Papyrus cackled to himself, dreaming over how cool and responsible he would be once he got older. He was gonna be tall, too! Taller than Sans, taller than even Gaster!

There would be no one who could stop his perfect and incredibly handsome rampage!

"bro, you're talking out loud again," Sans whispered, trying not to disturb the sleeping Undyne who was also in the room.

"SORRY! WILL BE QUIET!" Papyrus said in his lowest tone possible, which was a very quiet scream.

Considering the matter resolved, he then returned to giggling to himself, ignoring Sans's small sigh of amused resignation.

Last night had been very fun - his first ever sleepover! But Undyne had failed asleep so early. Who needed to go to sleep at _two am??_ Papyrus didn't go to sleep until four am at the earliest! Otherwise, it was just wasting valuable time that could be spent playing, or doing puzzles, or thinking up his next scheme to push Gaster into leaving the house!

It was a sad day when Papyrus slept more than four hours. That had only happened to him once or twice, thankfully, but he had always woken up quite dazed and confused. Sans may need to sleep a lot, but Papyrus most certainly didn't.

Gaster had to sleep a bit more than him, but only because Gaster was different from them. So it was okay that he needed a bit more rest. That sort of thing was to be expected, after all.

"Ugh..." Undyne groaned, slowly sitting up. "How are you guys awake already? It's like, six o'clock in the morning!"

"NOPE!" Papyrus corrected cheerfully. "SEVEN!"

She wrinkled her nose, looking like she wanted nothing more than to shove her head back into her pillow. "How's that any better??? It's still way too early! I don't usually get up until ten!"

Papyrus gasped, utterly horrified. How could anyone wait that long to get up? Didn't they know that there was many things to do during the day? Why, if they got up that late, the day was practically half-way over! _Preposterous._

Sans just chuckled.

"yeah, i'm with you there," he mumbled, fighting back a yawn. "unfortunately, paps is more of a morning skeleton than me, so we get up early every day. usually even earlier than this."

"What?" Undyne shouted, her eyes going wide. "That's CRAZY! Aren't you guys, like, a month old or something? I thought babies were supposed to sleep all the time!"

"NOT A BABY!" Papyrus said insistently. He wasn't! Sure, he wasn't fully grown yet or anything, but he was working on it! And Papyrus was most certainly not going to sleep all the time, regardless of his age.

"Fine, fine." Undyne rolled her eyes, but generously offered him a hand up anyway. The three children stumbled out into the kitchen, where Suzy was working at the stove.

They had met Undyne's mom last night, but she worked an early shift at the Hotel in Hotland, so she must have left already. Too bad! Papyrus really liked her - she had a weird laugh, just like Undyne!

"Fuhuhuhu!" Undyne cackled, running over to the table and jumping into her seat. "SIS! I want pancakes! Pancakes!"

Papyrus scrambled after her, pulling himself up. "YES! PANCAKES!"

"please," Sans added, teleporting into the chair next to his brother while the scientist's back was turned.

"Well, when you ask me so nicely, how could I say no?" Suzy said, an underlying bit of sarcasm in her voice.

Papyrus and Undyne didn't notice, cheering loudly, while Sans just shrugged.

First a sleepover, and now pancakes?? Gaster didn't make them very often, because he always got distracted and let them burn by accident. Papyrus couldn't wait!

...

Suzy smiled despite herself. The kids were cute, there was no doubt about that. They may be a bit annoying, but that's what little siblings were for.

Papyrus had somehow managed to get a piece of pancake to hang out of his eye socket, and Undyne's hair was sticky with syrup, but it could've been worse. Sans, of course, was completely immaculate.

She had noticed that the only time he really got messy with food was when there was ketchup involved, and even then she had the sneaking suspicion that it was just 'part of the gag'. Sans was entirely too clever, especially for someone who had only really existed for the better part of a month.

It was baffling, really, how far they had come, but Suzy couldn't say that she was disappointed. Honestly, she loved it. Not only was it a fascinating observation from a scientific standpoint, but the children were so good for her boss.

They made Gaster happy - happier than she'd ever seen him. And she would do anything to ensure that happiness.

Not in like, a _creepy_ way or anything. Suzy just... really cared about the Doctor. He was the only one to give her a chance, the only one to believe her when she said that she was capable.

At age fourteen, Suzy had attended one of the Doctor's lectures at the royal palace, back when tensions with humans were only just starting to get violent. It was one of the last lectures that he ever did, choosing after that to concentrate his efforts in helping with evacuations and developing technologies to defeat the humans.

And he did create some amazing things! His blasters were only the beginning of the magnificent weapons he made. But...

With monsters, it was all about intent. Someone who didn't want to hurt anyone, even armed with a deadly weapon, would only be able to do so much damage. Even Doctor Gaster himself, she had heard, was only barely capable of killing a human.

It had nothing to do with power levels, or ability - Gaster, despite his focus in the sciences, was no doubt one of the strongest monsters of the Underground. But he didn't want to hurt humans, not really. He wanted them to be gone, sure, but that's not quite the same thing.

And that's what Suzy had explained to him that day, expression defiant even as she only came up to the Doctor's elbow in height.

She chuckled ruefully, flipping another pancake onto the plate. What an arrogant, haughty child she had been back then! Of course, she still hated to be proven wrong, but she no longer marched up to government officials and demanded their attention anymore.

Though, if Suzy hadn't done that... Who knows how long it would have taken Gaster to notice her, to see her passion and drive?

The whole thing was rather embarrassing in hindsight, of course, but Suzy didn't regret it. She couldn't - not when it was the flashpoint to bring her to where she was now.

Finally distributing the last of the breakfast food to a table of hungry, demanding children, Suzy couldn't help but smile to herself. Perhaps that's why she often found herself feeling embarrassed at her little sister's brash attitude - it reminded her too much of herself.

Distracted as she was in her thoughts of the past, she mindlessly roved her eyes over the children, ending at where Sans was sitting. He hadn't gone in for second helpings like the others, and was merely sitting there, watching his younger brother fondly. It was a bit difficult to interpret his expression, since he had a near-permanent grin, but Suzy had more than enough practice with the Doctor on this subject.

That reminded her...

"SIS! We wanna play, okay?" "YES, PLAY!"

Suzy shook her head, but waved them on. "Sure, sure. Just remember, we have to leave in an hour to go back to the lab, okay?"

Undyne groaned loudly, but nodded in begrudging acceptance. "Okay! As long as I don't get stuck there all day while you do NERD STUFF again!"

"I can't guarantee anything."

"UGH!"

Scowling darkly, Undyne dragged the younger skeleton brother away. Sans made as if to follow them, but Suzy held out her hand.

"Could you hold on for a second, Sans? I want to talk to you," Suzy said, smiling politely. When his eye sockets narrowed in slight wariness, she was quick to clarify. "Oh, don't worry, you aren't in trouble. I just have a request to ask of you."

"alright..." Sans said, still seeming a little unnerved, but sitting back down despite it.

Suzy took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. This wasn't something that she'd wanted to do, but with the way things were going now... This was her best option. It might even be her only option.

~~(And if she kept repeating that to herself, it would definitely be true, right?)~~

"Let me preface this by saying that I have no right to ask this of you," Suzy said seriously, hands clenching into fists under the table. Sans stayed in his seat, even as his expression tightened. "I have no right to ask this of _anyone,_ but especially not you. If Doctor Gaster ever found out that I was discussing this with you, he would be furious."

"but...?" Sans prompted, his too-intelligent eyelights track her every move.

"But, at this point in time, I feel that I have no choice." That wasn't true. There's always a choice. Sometimes, you just choose the shitty one. "If I were capable of doing this myself I absolutely would - please believe me on that. But I'm not. I've already been... compromised."

Sans's expression was hard to read. With every word that left her mouth, the more closed off he became. Doing this would irreversibly ruin her relationship with the older skeleton brother, she knew that.

But this was the choice that she was making.

"Gaster is special," she said, ignoring the way that Sans scowled at her, a flash of protectiveness flaring in his posture. "Special in ways that are impossible for you and me to understand. By all rights, he shouldn't exist. I'm honestly astounded that he managed to survive into adulthood, and not just because of his lackadaisical attitude towards lab safety procedures."

"is there a point to this?" Sans said flatly, clearly eager to move on from that line of thought.

Good. That was exactly the reaction that she was looking for, exactly what she ~~(gaster)~~  needed.

"I'm getting there, let me finish," Suzy stated calmly. "Gaster is a miracle, if I were inclined to believe in such things. I owe him more than I could ever possible repay. All of us do - all the monsters that rely on his inventions, that had their lives saved by him during the war, all of that. He is an amazing, wonderful monster that I would sacrifice my life for in an instant."

"He is also a time bomb." After that sentence, Suzy could practically feel the killing intent of the child rising (and how incredible was that? such raw power... only the Doctor could have created something like this). But she didn't take it back. It was true, after all.

Everything that had been left unsaid in her words was drifting through the air between them, both of them aware of the truth but unwilling to voice it aloud.

"he's doing just fine," Sans growled, left eye sparking with the faintest shimmering of blue magic. "me 'n my bro are here. he ain't gonna go exploding on our watch."

Suzy studied him for a moment, noting the conviction in his tone and posture. It might not be enough... but for now, it had to be.

And how selfish was she, to ask this of a child? How _cruel...?_

"See that he doesn't. We're all counting on you."

It was okay. For the Doctor, Suzy was willing to be cruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suzy: i do care about the doctor, i'm just pretty sure that he's gonna die within a month  
> sans: *the jaws theme starts playing*
> 
> well, we've finally done it - a chapter where gaster does not appear at all, lol. i hope you're all enjoying!! let me know what you think! and hey, wanna chat/have a question? hit up my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	11. deeply imbued in the secrets of his science

You let out a long sigh, feeling exhausted beyond measure. The King and Queen had kept you up all night rambling on about how  _ happy _ they were to finally welcome Asriel into the world, how much of a good thing this would be for the kingdom, how they just couldn't  _ wait _ to set up playdates with Sans and Papyrus -

It was a lot to take in.

You weren't  _ opposed, _ of course, and even thought that it would be a good thing for the boys. But you couldn't help wishing that they could've waited to drag you into their long ramblings. It was your own fault, you supposed. They were so used to you being able to drop everything and stay with them as long as they wished, that they had forgotten that you had children to go home to now.

Not that you were using them as an  _ excuse _ or anything. You were quite sure that they were having a wonderful time with Suzy and Undyne. Their mother was... distant, but you didn't believe she posed a problem. The aquatic women was hardly ever around, after all.

You couldn't blame her, really. You had all lost things in the war.

But, you were getting off topic. It was nearly midday now, and you had finally managed to sneak away while they weren't looking. 

...Not the best method, perhaps, but Asgore and Toriel wouldn't scold you for it, you knew.

They had both seemed just a touch  _ softer _ when you arrived last night. Asgore, of course, had always been a huge fluffy goofball, but the war had taken its toll on him. Toriel had always been a bit tougher than him, a bit more willing to push and prod, more willing to strike the first blow.

You had seen none of that cold, vicious monster that you knew she could be. There was nothing but pure love and adoration in her expression, eyes only for her child that she clearly already loved so very deeply.

Motherhood would suit her well, you knew. If  ( ~~fatherhood~~ ) guardianship would suit you half as well, you would call it a miracle.

Your footsteps echoed down the corridor, hand on your chin as you walked along, lost in thought. You could take a shortcut to the lab, but you felt it important to gather your thoughts right now.

(And you certainly weren't attempting to hold off on getting to the lab, in case the boys weren't there yet and you were left disappointed.)

Besides, you had always liked this place. The Last Corridor. The hall before the throne room, and thus  _ literally _ the last corridor.

Asgore was not very creative with his naming conventions.

But this place had always stirred some emotion in you, even though you couldn't quite interpret what it was. Large, stained-glass windows that had the light from the Barrier shining in, which created an impressive shadowing effect.

If nothing else, the decor was beautiful.

But even as you saw the end of the room in sight, your gaze was drawn to a figure standing by the windows.

Your mood soured immediately upon the realization -  _ Riverperson. _

You thought about trying to sneak past them, but quickly dismissed it. There was no point. Riverperson always got their way in the end, you would never be able to escape. Best to just get this whole thing over with, and on  _ your _ terms.

You marched right up to them, shoving your hands in the pockets of your lab coat.

"Hello, Riverperson," you said tersely, trying your damn hardest not to start out with an antagonizing statement. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Their hood turned toward you, and you could practically taste the amusement wafting off of them. Ugh, infuriating.

"Tra la la..." they said softly, gliding just that inch closer to you. "It is a day, isn't it? Lovely for some people, horrific for others. On days like these, monsters like you... should be with their children, should they not?"

You stiffened.

"What, did something happen?" you asked urgently, reaching out to grab onto the sleeves of their cloak. "Is something wrong with the children?"

"Oh, no..." Riverperson said airily. "They just miss you. That's all. We always miss people when they leave us."

You relaxed your shoulders, releasing the other from your grip with a scowl. This was why you hated working with this damn prophet. They knew everything and nothing, and that nothing was ever as it seemed. Riverperson was a useful ally, of course, but only when they were being serious. Which, as indicated by their penchant for silly riddles and strange phrases, was not typically in their nature.

"Just go ahead and give me a panic attack, why don't you," you grumbled, taking a second to fiddle with your lab coat and attempt to straighten out some of the wrinkles. "So, why  _ are _ you here? Enjoying the view?"

To your surprise, the Riverperson snorted in disdain. That was rather... out of character.

"The view? Of  _ this _ place? Please," Riverperson dismissed, waving their right sleeve in the air as if to dissolve the mere thought. "This place has seen more tragedy than it deserves. There is no beauty to be found here - none that has not been tainted, anyway."

You blinked. The Last Corridor had been constructed not too long ago, especially by monster standards. If there had been any 'tragedy' here, you hadn't heard about it.

"Is this place full of tragedy, or  _ will _ it be?" you said pointedly, trying to bring Riverperson back to the present. They had a nasty habit of drifting off, completely losing track of whatever they were talking about - and sometimes even when they were talking.

Riverperson shook their head.

"This place is The Last, Gaster," they intoned, in a more serious voice than you had heard from them in quite some time. Even when they confronted you at the lab, it hadn't been quite like this. "The Last, and in many ways, the beginning. Depending on the choices made, at least. But still, I wonder... What causes cruelty? Does one injustice earn another? Can we ever truly change who we are?"

You  _ stared. _ "Riverperson."

They twitched, hood moving in your direction as if they'd only just noticed that you were in the room.

"Yes, Doctor?"

"You're rambling," you said dryly. "And even more than usual."

Letting out a sigh, you reached out and gingerly patted them on the shoulder. "Look, if tragedy is  _ going _ to happen here, then it will. If a great victory happens here instead, then it will. But we can't exactly do anything about that  _ right now, _ can we? So how about you let go of the predictions for a day, and come along."

"Come along?" Riverperson echoed, sounding curious and faintly surprised.

Ha, good. It had been far too long since you'd last caught them off guard.

"Yes,  _ come along. _ You wanted to meet the children, didn't you? This time, you can see the both of them when they're up, walking and talking. Alright?"

"I... Alright, Doctor," the Riverperson said, still seeming rather bewildered, but they surrendered to your tight grip with grace, following along as you dragged them out of the castle.

This was for  _ you, _ actually, so you didn't feel too bad about so abruptly messing up whatever weird timeline bullshit they were trying to dump on you. You wanted them to meet the children, true, but...

More than that, right now, you just didn't want to be alone.

"...Doctor."

You turned to look at the Riverperson, tilting your skull to the side in curiosity. "Yes? What is it?"

"What did you think of the young prince?" they questioned, voice somehow subdued. "Prince Asriel... What do you think of him?"

You took a moment to study their posture, and then shrugged.

"He is a baby, barely even a day old," you said dismissively. "It is impossible to make any assumptions about him now. What would be the point? He can neither prove nor disprove them, so he is basically useless for the time being."

Riverperson chuckled, causing your face to flush with the color of your magic when you realized that you had just called the royal prince  _ useless. _

"That is fair enough," they muttered. "But what do you think will come of him in the future? What do you think he will do?"

You narrowed your eye sockets, unsure if you were comfortable with this continued line of dialogue. What you had said before was true, if crude. Asriel was useless right now. How were you supposed to know what he would do?

Unless...

"You suspect he might be capable of breaking the barrier?" You asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of your voice.

That was a rumor that had circulated the population after the announcement of the pregnancy, desperate monsters whispering to each other in the dark that their prince would set them free.

"I  _ know _ he is," the Riverperson said, surprising you with their confidence. "What really matters is the cost."

For a single moment, you considered questioning them, but then dismissed it. With Riverperson in a mood like this, it simply wasn't worth it. Better to wait, and judge for yourself.

Besides. You wanted to go home. You had people waiting for you.

...

Riverperson stole a glance at their companion, eyeing him fleetingly.

This Gaster was...  _ interesting. _

It wasn't easy, living entrenched within the flow of time. There was no escape. There was no rest. Most of the time, Riverperson would become a recluse, never leaving their boat no matter how the other monsters would plead. But  _ this _ timeline...

Riverperson had actually sought out Gaster of their own will this time, which had rarely happened in any of the other worlds. They weren't quite sure how to describe why.

Most Gasters, upon learning of their abilities in the War or otherwise, would badger Riverperson relentlessly, always thirsting to make use of their powers and break into other universes with their help.

They always refused, of course, but that never seemed to stop the esteemed Doctor Gaster.

But this Gaster...  _ This Gaster... _

This Gaster seemed to  _ despise _ them. And not for any reasons that they would consider legitimate, either - like the fact that they had not warned the monsters about the War, or the Barrier, or any number of things. There were plenty of timelines where Riverperson was an outcast, despised for their continued stance on neutrality.

But this Gaster didn't hate them for any such reasons. No, he was just...  _ petty. _

He was petty, and emotional, and simultaneously confident and a complete wreck. It was  _ fascinating. _

Riverperson wasn't lying when they said that they had never quite met a Gaster like him before. One that listened to their predictions, but rarely acted on them, and always seemed very annoyed that they had offered it in the first place.

It wasn't that Gaster believed that 'they were all the masters of their own destiny', or that fate didn't exist. He just  _ didn't like _ Riverperson, and so chose to ignore them!

How delightful! How  _ human. _

They really were fond of him. It was a shame that he was going to fall.

...

Opening the door to the labs felt like a grand homecoming, even with the sour note of Riverperson behind you. Since you had been the one to bring them and they didn't just  _ break in _ this time, you would accept it.

"g, you're back!" You had barely taken a step through the door when Sans attached himself to your leg, having moved so fast you could have sworn he teleported.

"G?" Papyrus said inquisitively, poking his skull out from behind another door, before his sockets widened as he took you in. He squealed in absolute glee. "G! G BACK! BACK NOW!"

He rocketed over, attaching himself to your other leg, causing you to let out a strained chuckle as you tried to move into the lab with the two of them stuck on you like limpets.

"Indeed, I'm here. And I have someone that I would like the two of you to meet. Well, meet  _ officially, _ that is."

So busy with trying to untangle the two children from your body, you failed to notice the way Sans glanced up at the Riverperson - and  _ snarled,  _ flashing his small white fangs.

The Riverperson only chuckled. After what they had seen from the young man's conversation with Suzy earlier, this sort of thing was to be expected, was it not?

How amusing. Too bad that it wouldn't be enough to save you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> riverperson: hey bro you're gonna die  
> gaster: hm, what's that? did you say something? i can't hear you over the sound of your BULLSHIT.
> 
> lol, hope y'all are enjoying! more ominous shit to come. if you wanna chat/have a question, hit up my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! i love to talk to you all, believe me. thanks as always! <3


	12. who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil

"Sans."

"mph."

You sighed, nudging him on the shoulder.

"Time to wake up."

"...five more minutes."

You rubbed your face in exasperation, wishing that your darling son could get moving just a bit faster. This was already the fifth time you had tried to get him out of bed this morning.

"You said that you wanted to go to the lab today, didn't you? Well, now's the time. If you don't get up, then I'm going to assume that you no longer wish to join me," you threatened, putting your hands on your hip bones. Gah, look what had become of you!

You would never have imagined this kind of life for you in the past. You were not...  _ opposed _ to it, however. Your children were intelligent, and mostly capable.

Except for right now, apparently.

"ugh, g," Sans whined, rolling over to tangle himself up in his sheets. "i  _ do _ wanna go, i swear. just not right now."

"That means nothing to me," You said flatly. You were seriously cutting it close at this point - even for someone who could teleport. "Either get out of bed and be ready to leave in five minutes, or eventually get dragged out by Papyrus and Undyne. Make your choice."

Sans groaned, loudly and with plenty of scowling, but he grudgingly complied. Once you actually witnessed him (slowly) scooting out of bed, you let him be, with one final warning about the time frame.

Walking down the stairs to the first floor, you were almost startled by how quiet it was. Without Papyrus around and constantly yelling, the entire house seemed just that bit smaller.

But there was nothing you could do about that. You had stalled for two months about putting the boys in school, desiring selfishly to keep them with you for as long as possible, but when it came to the point that even Sans was asking about the Academy and what it was like, you knew it was time.

Sans was in a slightly more advanced class than Papyrus, but they were both still in the beginner levels. Since ages could vary so much in monster society, children were placed in grades depending on their skill level rather than their age, as humans did it. You, personally, found this to be much more efficient, but you could admit to some bias.

Papyrus had loved school immediately, and though he did not have every class with Undyne or his brother, the three of them all shared varying classes with each other, and seemed to have great fun by every report you had received.

It was relieving, honestly, to know that you didn't have to worry about what those two rascals might be up to - and for at least six hours a day! That was six hours of science! And even then, you usually had a bit of time after school too. Apparently, Undyne enjoyed dragging Papyrus (and Sans, by extension) to the Dump, a trash-laden area of Waterfall that had clearly been around for a lot longer than the monsters had.

Papyrus got a kick out of it, since he was always happy to spend time with his friends, but Sans wasn't as much of a fan.

You suspected that Papyrus and Undyne were just a bit too rowdy for him, especially when they were teamed up together as an unstoppable force of mayhem and yelling. You couldn't blame him, really - those two were too much for even you at times.

But, regardless, it still happened. Like with today. It was school vacation right now, and Undyne and Papyrus had been racing around the Underground all week, forcing Sans to come along with them whenever he wasn't busy.

It made you a bit paranoid in the beginning, considering the many dangers the Underground still posed despite recent efforts to speed up construction, but as days and weeks went by with nothing happening, you were able to let yourself relax just a bit. You still expected Papyrus to be back at the house at no later than five in the afternoon, however. More relaxed didn't mean negligent, after all.

You weren't feeling very relaxed right now, however. Today was important - you were planning on building the first small-scale prototype of the CORE today, and you had promised that Sans would come along and help out. But if he insisted on staying in bed for an extra hour, then you would not be able to guarantee your continued sanity!

"i'm here g, i'm here," sans said with a yawn, popping up from behind you with no warning.

You let out a bitten-off curse, clutching at your chest in surprise.

"I  _ do _ wish that you would stop doing that," you lamented, letting your shoulders loosen up and relax once you realized who it was.

Sans just sniggered, reaching up to pat your hip. He and his brother had grown even more over the past few months, and though Papyrus was already past your hip in height, Sans had grown only barely taller than your knee. It was... sometimes a bit frightening, to think of why that might be, so you tried not to think of it if possible.

"aw, it's the only way i get to surprise you, g," he said, grin growing slightly as his mischievous nature showed itself once again. "now, didn't you have somewhere you wanted to be?"

You shot him a bit of a cross look, but then sighed. He was right on that part, at least.

"Yes, indeed. Let us head to the lab, then. I think we've wasted enough time already."

Sans just shrugged, entirely unrepentant, and you gently grasped his shoulder as you pulled him through the shortcut.

You landed just beyond the entrance of the lab, as you always did, and turned to meet Goss's disapproving face.

Now, to be fair, Goss always looked like they were slightly disapproving, but this was an extreme one. They were pulling out the 'I'm not mad, just disappointed' frown and everything.

"Doctor Gaster, may I have a word with you?" They asked, floating a little bit closer to you.

You barely managed to hold back your grimace, inwardly sweating.

"Of course, Doctor," you said, clinging to the last shreds of your professional manners. "If you would give me a moment to get Sans set up, I could meet you in your office shortly."

Their eyes narrowed, clearly not trusting you to keep to your word, but Goss still nodded.

"See that you do," they said, in a tone that was just to the left of threatening.

Nodding at them in return, you quickly walked past them with Sans in tow, who only lasted until the next corridor over before he began giggling to himself.

"Oh, hush you," You said, though not without some amusement of your own. Goss always managed to make you feel like a child about to be sent to the principal's office, so it wasn't too strange that Sans found your interactions to be humorous.

You always tried your best to be calm and professional, after all. Seeing you in such a flustered state was quite a rare thing indeed. You could allow Sans his fun, with this.

"gonna go get lectured?" he said teasingly, plopping his butt down in your office chair.

You rolled your eyelights, rubbing the top of his skull. "So it would seem. Stay here for a little bit, okay? I'll try to escape as soon as I can."

"take your time!" Sans called out as you made to exit the room, already flipping through some of the books and notes that you had out on your main desk. You got the feeling that he was perfectly fine with entertaining himself for a while.

You made your way out of the lab area, heading for Goss's office. Their place was more near the entrance of the building, since they liked to screen the monsters that tried to come in, make sure that no mischief was going on.

This wasn't something that you'd asked them to do - Goss just always wanted to be looking out for others, and one of the best ways for them to do that, in their own personal opinion, was to micromanage everything in the lab.

Well, perhaps that wasn't the exact way that they had described it, but that was the way you had been able to translate it.

"I'm here," you said as you entered their space, resisting the urge to sigh. "You said that you wished to speak with me, Doctor?"

Goss looked up at you from where they had been examining some reports, and nodded, gesturing to the chair opposite of them.

"Yes, thank you for coming so promptly," they said, which you kinda felt was a dig at your reluctance to be here. Mean. "Please, take a seat."

You sat down, stiffly, and barely managed to stop yourself from crossing your arms across your chest like a grumpy child. You hadn't done anything wrong. This was just going to be more of Goss trying to needle you into getting a better diet, or something. That's what it always was, the busybody.

"There's a serious discussion that we need to have, Doctor," Goss said gravely, causing you to straighten your back and pay a bit more attention at their serious tone. "I have been keeping it to the side, because we have all been so busy lately, but I feel like it can't be ignored any longer."

"I understand," you said, even though you had absolutely no idea what was going on. "Please, proceed."

Goss sighed, and then simply looked at you for a moment.

"First, I must apologize. I did something without your permission, something that I most certainly should not have done."

They actually seemed rather uncomfortable for a moment, and you waved them forward even as your brow furrowed in confusion. Honestly, you could think of very little that you would not trust Goss with. They had been one of your trusted companions for decades now, and even though you complained about their nagging, they only ever had your best interests at heart.

And Goss knew that you trusted them. What could they have possibly done to make them think they would have to give an apology like this?

"I CHECKed you, Doctor. More than once."

_ Oh. _

You froze, suddenly understanding their hesitance. CHECKing outside of battle was a bit of a taboo, especially when the monster in question was not in any kind of critical condition, or a member of your family. Some monsters could even tell when a someone had checked them, being able to feel that curious sensation of magic.

You weren't one of them, unfortunately. You could tell inside a battle, because all of your senses were heightened then, but  _ outside _ of one you were basically numb to the sensation. It would be easy for someone to CHECK you without your knowledge.

And, truth be told, you felt rather unnerved at the realization that Goss had been CHECKing you who knows how often. A CHECK could tell monsters a lot more than what they might necessarily want others to know, after all.

"I... see," you said finally, linking your hands together in front of you. "Thank you for telling me, Doctor. And I won't say that I'm ungrateful, but why tell me now? Did you see something in my CHECK that you believe needs to be brought to my attention?"

"Yes, Doctor," Goss said, with absolutely no hesitation. That was something to be admired, at least. "Your HOPE has been going down, sir. Steadily, over the course of the last several months."

You blinked, startled. "Really...?"

You couldn't possibly think of a reason why. A monster's HP was measured by their current mindset, and you had never been happier in your life. Why would your HP be dropping? If anything, you'd thought it would increase!

"I don't know," Goss confessed, looking remorseful that they couldn't do more. "But I couldn't ignore it any longer. I'm sorry, sir."

You stood up. "I accept your apology, Goss. But I should be getting back to my lab. If you'll excuse me."

You weren't ashamed to admit that you turned tail and ran. You just couldn't deal with this right now.

And, with you being so focused on your escape, you didn't notice the small flash of blue light from just outside the office door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> riverperson: you're gonna die  
> goss: you're gonna die  
> suzy: i'm worried that gaster is gonna die  
> gaster: hm, should i put a safety rail on this thing? nah, why bother
> 
> lol, hope you're all enjoying! lemme know what you think, especially now that we're moving along at a fast clip. hey, got a question/wanna chat? hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com). love y'all! <3


	13. we must first have recourse to death

"G? G? G!"

Gaster grunted vaguely, waving a hand at Papyrus. "Just a moment, please."

Papyrus sighed, hands on his hips. His creator had been very distracted as of late, and Papyrus was getting sick of it!

Ever since that day he had taken Sans to the lab, he had been focusing more and more on his experiments, and spending less time with his children. Which was utterly unacceptable! And after all the work Papyrus had put in to make this dense scientist have a better sleeping and eating schedule - completely ruined!

Papyrus simply did not approve.

Sans was no help, of course. He could tell that his older brother was equally displeased by this development, but he had also been avoiding G, lately. Clearly something had happened on that trip, but both of them refused to tell him anything!

Papyrus hadn't been born yesterday - he'd been born almost a year ago! He had plenty of life experience, and he knew what he was talking about!

"I WANNA PLAY!" he said, stomping his foot.

Gaster sighed, rubbing his face tiredly. Papyrus felt a small sting of guilt at the obvious exhaustion on his face, but that's why he was here! He didn't really want to play right now, not with Gaster in such a state, but maybe if he could just drag Gaster away from his desk long enough, he would be able to get him to relax a bit!

"I know you do, Papyrus," Gaster said, reaching over to gently pat him on the top of his skull. "But I'm working on something very important right now, okay? I promise I'll play with you later."

Papyrus scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. Like he believed that for a second! He knew that the second he walked away, Gaster would involve himself in something else and get distracted, only surfacing to make Papyrus and Sans a quick dinner before immersing himself back in his work.

He could only be grateful that Gaster wasn't at the lab today, and was instead working on some kind of blueprints at the house. At least this way, the skeleton child actually had some chance of dragging him away from his duties. He was completely immovable at the lab - and it didn't hurt that all the other scientists were around to keep an eye on the two children if they were asked, so Gaster didn't feel bad about leaving them alone for a while.

Honestly, Papyrus just wanted to know  _ why. _ Why the sudden change? Why had Gaster suddenly become so intense in his work, as if he was worried that someone was going to rip it out from under him?

It just didn't make any sense to him. Gaster's experiments would always be waiting for him when he came back, so what was with all the commotion?

And it wasn't just Gaster, either. One good thing about being a little kid, Papyrus had found, was that adults tended to overlook him easily whenever he wasn't making a complete ruckus. Now, while that actually bothered him a little bit on some level, he could certainly appreciate it at times like this.

Left to his own devices, he was able to keenly observe what was happening at the labs, sharp gaze never missing a thing. Every little scrap of information was important - rather like putting together a puzzle, in all honesty. And there was nothing Papyrus was better at than doing puzzles. 

He could see how frazzled everyone in the lab had become, and it wasn't just because of the rush to complete testing for the creation of the CORE. Well, that was certainly a large part of it, but some things didn't add up.

Goss had been acting strangely for a while now, often opening their mouth as if they wanted to interject with something during meetings, before closing their mouth and shooting Gaster an almost guilty look. Not to mention, Papyrus had personally witnessed Goss and Gaster having a couple of whispered arguments, the two clearly trying not to involve anyone else in the lab.

Suzy, too, was being a bit shifty. She had been spending more and more time at the lab, much to Undyne's complaints, as she missed having her older sister around to badger. But Suzy remained steadfast in her duty, though she refused to tell either of the children why, only claiming that it was 'grown-up stuff'. Papyrus thought that Sans may have known what she was referring to, seeing the way his older brother would grimace whenever it was brought up, but Papyrus knew better than to ask him. Sans never talked about anything that he didn't want to, and the fact that he hadn't mentioned it himself was enough of an indication on that matter.

But, in the end... Papyrus still didn't know what to do. He had the puzzle pieces, sure, but no picture to put them in. He didn't know what was really significant or not, and no way to really find out!

It was extremely frustrating, to say the least.

"AUDIBLE SIGH!" he said out loud, even as he sighed loudly. At that, Gaster covered his mouth when he snorted with amusement, a small smile finally coming to his face.

"Alright, look," he said, misinterpreting Papyrus's action as being about their little disagreement, and not his own internal monologue. "I'll finish this up as soon as I can, and then we can hang out for a while, okay? I mean it. Give me twenty minutes, and then I promise I'll come get you."

Papyrus brightened, nodding eagerly. He had long discovered that Gaster was much more likely to keep his word on such things when he had given himself a strict time-frame. 

"OKAY, I WILL TRUST YOU ON THIS!" Papyrus said, proud of the way his speech had finally matured. For some reason, he'd had a lot of trouble with that before - he knew what he was thinking inside of his head, but it never came out the right way. Not anymore!

Gaster chuckled, shaking his head, but Papyrus was happy to report that he looked a lot more relaxed as he turned back to finish up his work.

He would let it go for now - he really was trusting Gaster to keep his word on this, and Gaster had yet to let him down when it truly mattered.

...

You sighed gustily, some of the papers on your desk flying off at the action. Staring at them blankly for a moment, you wavered between the decision of whether to pick them up or not, but eventually your laziness won out, forcing you to drop your skull back to the desk instead of getting up and doing something productive.

Ah, Sans would be proud.

At the thought, you scowled, nestling deeper into your pile of paperwork in hopes of disappearing from the outside world altogether. 

Sans had been avoiding you. That much was clear.

And it was entirely your fault, of course - you must have done something to upset him. You'd thought that the two of you had been getting along better than ever before, until you'd had that horrid day at the lab. Ever since then, Sans had been using every excuse he could to stay away from you, from pretending to be asleep when you came in the room, to claiming that Papyrus needed his help with something and skedaddling before you ever got the chance to open your mouth.

You must have done something. You weren't quite sure what, but it was most definitely your fault.

Especially since you knew that you could put a stop to this at any time. You could always force Sans to sit down with you and talk about what was going on, but you were a coward and a weakling. You didn't want to hear it. You didn't want to hear that Sans was bored of you, or disgusted of you, or  _ afraid _ of you.

(for what you had done in the war, for what you had been willing to do for revenge, for what you had been intending to do to the two of them if they hadn't been sentient - what you might have just done  _ anyway, _ if you had been an inch more desperate.)

No. You would rather stay here in your office, sulking, then out there, longing to see your son but too afraid of making him uncomfortable to seek him out.

This was pretty much what you deserved, anyway. What did you think would happen when you made a child? That they would  _ love _ you?

No, no, that wasn't fair.

You sighed again, lifting your skull from the desk only to let it fall down again with a satisfying clunk.

Papyrus loved you. And Sans had, for a time. You weren't sure if that still applied, but it would be the very height of rudeness to ignore it, or throw it away as if it had meant nothing in the first place.

And besides, their current level of affection for you really didn't mean anything in the end - you loved them, and that was all that mattered. You wouldn't abandon them, and you would always help them out as best you could, no matter their current feelings towards you.

You made that a promise, and sealed it inside your soul.

And then, you stood up from your desk.

After all, you promised Papyrus that you would come play, didn't you? And you didn't want to break that promise. 

Ever.

...

Sans ducked back behind the corner, his nonexistent heart beating fast.

He'd almost run straight into Doctor SixOne, who, while likely to let Sans do whatever he wanted out of a strange combination of affection and crushing anxiety, was also one of the ones who was most likely to snitch to Gaster immediately.

And Sans really couldn't have that right now. He was on a mission. 

Though he hated to admit it, he understood what Suzy had been going on about. There was something about Gaster that felt just a little... hazy, like he existed in this universe but only because he wanted to.

Like he might disappear at any moment.

It was hard for him to describe, really. Papyrus had no problem with it, of course - he said that Gaster was just a bit 'REALITY-ADJACENT', and left it at that, but that wasn't enough for Sans.

He needed to know. He needed to  _ understand. _

Sans couldn't just content himself with the knowledge that Gaster probably shouldn't exist, he had to know  _ why. _

Why? Why did he exclude such an unnerving aura, one that Sans had personally witnessed as having made monsters turn away from him in something like confused fear? None of the monsters that Gaster had spent a lot of time with, or personally knew, but it was there, and it was indisputable.

Why? And most importantly, why was his HP dropping?

HP didn't just fall out of nowhere - and especially not the type of huge drop that Goss seemed to have been implying. Sans ached to take a look himself, maybe even see what Gaster's CHECK info was - since that was unique to everyone that saw it, and could change all the time if significant events were happening, but he didn't know how.

And that was the most frustrating bit. Gaster was hurt, he was possibly  _ dying _ and there was nothing that Sans could do about it. How could he solve a problem that he couldn't see?

Especially when Gaster was trying to be so nonchalant about it, despite the fact that Sans could practically taste the tension wafting off of him. 

It made him unbearable to be around. Sans couldn't stand it, couldn't stand to be around the monster who had made him, given him life.

Not until Sans knew how to solve it, anyway.

Which was why he was at the lab right now, instead of being all cozied up in his bed and taking a nap like he wanted to. Goss was the type to make notes about everything, even something as personal about a monster's CHECK, and if Sans could get his tiny goblin hands on those, it wouldn't even matter that he didn't know how to CHECK someone.

If he could just do this, then he would make everything better. Sans would make it better - that was a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: everything is okay and i am fine  
> sans & papyrus: guess who's calling bullshit. it's us. 
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying! lemme know what you think. and hey, wanna chat/have a question? hit me up on [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	14. i must also observe the natural decay

Months. It took  _ months _ for Sans to get here - months of avoiding Gaster, months of trying not to tip off his brother to what he was doing, months of  _ agonizing _ amounts of work. If there was ever any doubt to his dedication, Sans wanted that to be thrown out the window right now. This was more work than he had ever done in his life,  _ literally. _

But  _ finally, _ after all this, Sans had finally gotten his hands on the reports.

It had taken an absurd amount of effort on his part. Not only did he have to sneak into the lab, he had to keep out of sight of all the other scientists, and break into Doctor Goss' office on top of that. 

It had been worth it though - he'd only just managed to copy over all the reports on Gaster's CHECK, and now Sans could actually take the time to examine them at length.

They weren't good.

Sans had expected as much, simply based on Goss and Gaster's tense conversation that day, but actually seeing it was another matter altogether.

Gaster's HP had initially been over five thousand, an incredible feat. Here, trapped in the darkness of the Underground, a lot of monsters had lost some points off their overall HP, but Gaster hadn't. He still had one of the highest numbers around.

And then...

It began to fall. 

According to the reports, Goss had been sneakily CHECKing Gaster a lot over the years, whenever they were worried about their boss' wellbeing - which was quite often, considering how much trouble Gaster managed to get himself into.

Gaster's HP had remained steady for years, not wavering even once. Which meant that  _ something _ had to have changed, some new factor had to be introduced in order to cause this issue.

And what was the only new factor in Gaster's life? Sans and Papyrus.

He just didn't know what to make of it. Was Gaster's steady decline of HP really his fault? He hadn't thought that he was making Gaster unhappy. Sans knew that it wasn't his brother's fault - how could it be? Which meant that it had to be  _ his _ fault. 

Sans must have done something wrong.

That's how HP worked, after all. It depended on a monster's mindset, what they were able to push past and overcome. If the answer to that ever changed, it was because something in their life had hurt them. 

Somewhere along the line, Sans had hurt his father.

And now, he didn't know what to do about it. Was there anything he  _ could _ do? He could continue avoiding Gaster, obviously, but these last few months had clearly taken a toll on the older monster, and it was upsetting Papyrus as well. 

Besides, given that he didn't know what he had done to cause this drop of HP in the first place, it would be difficult for him to find a way to avoid it in the future.

Regardless,  _ something _ had to be done. 

And Sans was determined to be the one to do it. After all, this whole mess was his fault in the first place, wasn't it?

...

Shuffling through the papers, you grimaced at seeing how much work you still had to do. Construction had begun in Hotland, but it would still take years for the CORE to be anywhere near operational. Which was unfortunate, to say the least.

Everyone was getting restless. Now that it was pretty much universally agreed upon that they weren't going to be able to make it out of the Underground on their own means, monsters were scrambling for something to do - something to help show them that just because they had lost their freedom, they hadn't lost their spirit.

One of the biggest suggestions had been the constructions of puzzles and traps, all over the Underground. A diversionary tactic, just in case their worst fears came true and the humans invaded the Underground to finish the job.

Which, of course... had also been an idea for the CORE. 

You weren't fond of it - honestly, you thought the whole thing was a bit idiotic, but in the end, you weren't really the one responsible for that decision. It was feasibly possible, so Asgore and Toriel had made the order for it to happen.

Seriously though, making the entire CORE into a puzzle? It had some merits, certainly. If an outer source was able to control the puzzle, then it would be near-impossible for any human to get past it. But the cost and time of construction was, frankly, ridiculous! 

If you were building the CORE the way you had intended, the way you had  _ actually _ designed, then it would have been a power source for the Underground and a way to traverse Hotland for those who weren't quite as physically capable. It would have taken maybe six months, tops. The most difficult part about it would have been the power source itself.

But now? Now, it felt like such a farce. Moving hallways. Elevators that went sideways?? That was the exact opposite of what an elevator was supposed to do!

You leaned forward, cradling your skull in your hands. It really wasn't as bad as you were making it out to be. And if the King and Queen commanded it, then it wasn't like you could refuse anyway.

It just... It just  _ hurt, _ if you were being honest with yourself. They had decided on this anyway, despite the fact that you had advised against it. It felt like they were undermining your authority, like they didn't trust you.

You knew that wasn't true. It was only that Toriel, and Asgore especially, had a tendency to be swayed solely by public opinion. The public wanted the CORE to be a giant moving puzzle, so that was what they got.

It wasn't a bad trait in a ruler, and you had always admired that they took their citizens opinions into such serious account. But you couldn't help but feel that they took it too far. It was one thing to take your people's opinions into account on something that was public property. But for all that the CORE was going to technically be a machine for the public, you had never intended it to be open access. There was going to be a lot of places in the CORE with dangerous equipment, or scientific instruments that really should not be disturbed by anyone who wasn't completely informed of what they were doing.

And on top of all that, they wanted the CORE to have an elevator giving direct access to the castle? What  _ idiot _ had thought of that?!

Sighing loudly, you banged your skull on the worktable. No, it wasn't fair for you to be thinking like this. Everyone had a lot of things going on right now, you included. You were just being uncharitable because you were having trouble at home, and that made you grumpy and mean at work.

Ha, trouble at home. Like you had ever expected to have to say something like that.

But you did. You had a  _ family _ now, and you loved them so much that it hurt. So, why was this happening?

You loved them, you really did. And you tried your best for them in every way you could, sending them to school, looking after them, trying to provide them with playmates around their mental ages - their physical ages hardly seemed to matter anymore, considering how advanced the boys had become in just under a year.

You tried so hard, and it wasn't enough.

Lately, it had begun to feel like the boys were spending more time looking after you than anything else, even with Sans still avoiding you like the plague. Papyrus had even begun to decline spending time with Undyne to instead 'hang out' with you.

How miserable must you have looked for him to insist on that?

Ha... You felt absolutely pathetic. 

Grumbling to yourself, you pushed the rest of the paperwork out of the way and rested your skull on your folded arms. You were just going to take a quick nap. Maybe once you did that, you would wake up feeling a bit more competent.

...

_ It's like you aren't even trying - _

_ You're not like  _ them _ , Gaster - _

_ Why are you whining? I am teaching you what you must know to survive, you stupid boy - _

_ Do you really think they will show a creature like  _ you _ any mercy? _

...

You woke up crying. And you certainly didn't feel anymore competent than before.

...

Grillby sighed under his breath, eyes darting over to where Sans and Papyrus were eating a late lunch. The children were sitting by themselves in a booth, and they looked utterly miserable.

True, not many other monsters would be able to even tell. Sans still had his permanent grin in place, and Papyrus was being as loud and boisterous as ever, but Grillby knew better.

Not only was he a fire elemental, meaning that he had many years of experience distinguishing facial expressions from his often difficult-to-read kin, he had also known Gaster for many, many years. He knew when that man was sulking, and his sons had the same exact expressions as him.

Sans' smile was strained and forced, seeming to be more of an obligation to him currently than simply his normal mode. Papyrus was acting very cheerful, yes, but it was incredibly over-exaggerated. He was clearly using it as a way to compensate for the fact that both brothers had been lapsing, recently.

Grillby saw all that. He  _ saw _ it, but he didn't know what to do about it. What could he even do? Gaster was working on something that was incredibly important for monsterkind, and it wasn't as if the children didn't have people looking after them. There was always at least one monster hovering over the two of them, and that didn't even count the residents of Snowdin, who were always happy to see the children running around.

There weren't many kids in the Underground, after all - those who did exist had to be cherished. And it didn't hurt that both boys were silly and charming, and had a father that so obviously loved them.

Ah, but that was part of the problem, wasn't it?

Grillby scrubbed harder at the glass in his hands.  _ Gaster. _ He was the real reason the children were upset.

But Grillby wasn't privy to all the details of the skeleton household. He didn't know why certain things were happening, he just knew that they were.

Like Sans avoiding Gaster, first of all. And Gaster trying to respect that decision while simultaneously sulking over it, and poor Papyrus caught in the middle.

And the biggest issue, at the end of the day, was a lack of trust. That family had a lot of love, there was no doubt about that, but their trust in each other was in question.

None of them trusted each other to take care of themselves, hilariously enough, resulting in some kind of strange circle of scolding as they all tried to keep each other in good health.

But even more than that, Grillby thought, was the daddy issues.

It was a fun way to think of it, though Grillby did feel a little bad. He'd never had the chance to meet Gaster's father - he'd died long before the war had really gotten bad, which was the point when Gaster and Grillby had met.

But he had heard many, many stories about Semi, the skeleton monster who towered over even his seven-foot tall son. And he had heard even more rumors -  _ unsavory _ ones, at that.

Of course, Grillby tried not to put too much stock in such things. And those days were hard for everyone, especially those directly involved in the conflict. Such environments were the perfect breeding grounds for slander, so Grillby had never given it too much stock.

But, Gaster...

Gaster was his friend. And his friend was utterly terrified at the thought of being called a father,  _ so sure _ that he would ruin any child that dared to do so.

And something about that was just so achingly sad.

Grillby shook his head, dismissing such thoughts. They wouldn't help anyone, especially not the two boys moping about in his bar.

Well, the least he could do was offer them a free refill on their fries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: wait, if i have daddy issues -  
> sans: and i have daddy issues -  
> papyrus: then who's flying the plane??
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	15. i do not ever remember to have trembled

Sans glanced up at Gaster, before hurriedly tearing his gaze away, staring at his plate. The three of them were actually eating dinner together for the first time in what felt like forever, and Sans didn't even have it in him to appreciate it.

All he could think about was Gaster's stats. His CHECK information.

***WingDings Gaster - ATK 999 DEF 0 HP 500**

***Your boss, who you trust more than anyone.**

All he could think about was the way it had changed.

***Your boss, who seems to be getting weaker.**

***Your boss, who you fear might be dying.**

***Your boss, who you would do anything to save.**

Goss had diligently recorded everything that they observed, not leaving out even those things that were so incredibly personal, and somewhat embarrassing. They were a true scientist, through and through.

Sans didn't feel very grateful for it at the moment, however. He felt like he didn't know anything more than he did before - less, maybe, with the new questions this information had brought up.

But it wasn't like he could ask Gaster about it, and Goss's reports were the only information he had on the subject. If only he could figure out how to do a CHECK himself, then he wouldn't have to spend all his time worrying that Gaster was about to dust right in front of them...

"Enjoying the food, Sans?" Gaster said rather dryly, making Sans jump and focus his attention on him. "By the way you're glaring at it, I suppose not."

Sans flushed, ducking his head. He hadn't even realized he'd been doing that.

"u-uh, no," he mumbled, sticking another forkful of spaghetti in his mouth. "it's great, thank you."

Gaster observed him for a moment, clearly not convinced, but then sighed. He smiled, ruefully, and Sans was entranced but the expression. It seemed like it had been so long since he'd last seen Gaster actually look  _ happy, _ and didn't that just burn?

"Well, I couldn't blame you if you didn't," he said, letting out a little laugh. "Spaghetti is about the only thing I know how to make reliably, but that doesn't mean it's good."

"NO!" Papyrus spoke up, sending their father a scolding look and thankfully saving Sans from having to do the same. "IT'S GOOD. YOU SHOULD NOT PUT YOURSELF DOWN. YOU SHOULD BE UP, LIKE ME!"

Gaster smiled, and Sans found himself grinning into his food as well. Even though Papyrus wasn't actually that much younger than Sans - literally a day younger, if that - he had a innocence and childish sort of nature that Sans didn't. The older brother seemed to have been born perpetually tired, which was pretty unfortunate, in his opinion. Maybe if he had been born with even a little of Papyrus's energy, he would be able to do all of this investigation stuff without having to push Gaster away at the same time.

Eh, a skeleton can dream, can't he?

"You're right, as always," Gaster said, honestly looking very cheered by Papyrus's words. "As long as you two are enjoying it, that's enough for me."

Papyrus nodded firmly, and then went back to sticking his fist in the bowl of spaghetti and chewing it like it was some kind of burger. Jeez, and Gaster said that  _ Sans' _ eating habits made him a little gremlin. Papyrus was just as bad, he just only did it with foods that he really,  _ really _ liked.

Which was spaghetti, apparently.

Well, Sans wouldn't complain. It could be hard to actually get Papyrus to eat anything, with how picky he was, so meals like this were actually super helpful. Not to mention, Papyrus was willing to choke down even some food he hated if it meant that he could eat dinner with his whole family.

Sans knew that was his fault. He had been driving everyone apart, causing so much problems, this was all his fault -

Before he could spiral down any further into those thoughts, Gaster patted him gently on the top of his skull.

"Would you be willing to watch a movie with us tonight?" he murmured, and he seemed to be carefully keeping himself neutral, trying not to influence Sans's opinion either way. "Papyrus has one that he is very interested in."

"YEAH!" Papyrus said, brightening up. His smile was enough to make the whole room feel lighter. "IT'S ABOUT FRIENDSHIP! AND SWORDS!"

"swords?" Sans asked in bemusement. Gaster was absolutely no help, merely chuckling to himself.

"YES! SWORDS OF FRIENDSHIP!"

Did he want to watch a movie...? Well, yes, of course. Sans would take any opportunity he could to laze on the couch with his family. But... Did he deserve it? That was the real question. After all, it was probably his fault that Gaster was losing HOPE, his fault that all of this was happening, his fault that his father was  _ dying _ -

"We would like you to come," Gaster added, breaking Sans out of his thoughts. Sans looked up at him, and he seemed so hopeful, and yet utterly resigned. Papyrus, too, seemed to have already given up, picking at his food with a morose expression.

That was what did it. Sans never wanted to put that expression on his family's face again.

"okay," he said, politely ignoring the way both of them perked up like excited puppies. "that sounds like a fun time. i'm sure i'll enjoy it, you always pick movies with a  _ sharp _ wit, paps."

"YES, I DO HAVE IMPECCABLE TASTE!" Papyrus said proudly, before he stiffened, turning slowly to glare at Sans. "...BROTHER?"

Sans barely resisted a smile, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. On his other side, Gaster was covering his mouth with his hand, but considering the fact that there was a giant hole in the middle, it did little to cover his grin. 

"WAS THAT... A PUN?!"

"i dunno, bro," Sans said, unable to hide his mirth at this point. "did you find it  _ punny?" _

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" The look of absolute disgust on Papyrus’s face was enough to send the other two into hysterics, laughing loudly.

Papyrus tried to pout, but he seemed a little pleased with the reaction. 

Man, it was good to be spending time with his family again.

…

Goss floated through the dark hallways of the lower lab, lost in thought. Gaster had taken the whole thing better than they'd thought he would, admittedly, but things were still strained between them. He made sure not to let it impact their professional relationship, of course, but it was was obvious.

Where before, Goss might have scolded Gaster for taking unnecessary risks in the lab, or tried to needle him into eating more, they could instead only stand by helplessly as these things went on. That may have seemed counterintuitive to their initial intent, but they didn't know what else to do.

They had invaded Gaster's privacy in an extreme, and  _ permanent _ manner. As neither his mate nor his family, Goss had no right to CHECK him, let alone as often as they had done it. Goss was his coworker, his subordinate at that - they were honestly lucky that Gaster was so understanding, or they could have been fired for such a thing.

Sometimes they felt like they should have been fired anyway. Don't get them wrong, they loved working at the labs. It was their dream, and it had Doctor W.D. Gaster! What more could they possibly need?

But of course, they had gotten greedy. Goss had tried to reach for more than they were owed.

It was... a failing, of theirs. They cared so much about their fellow monsters, wanted to help so badly, that they - 

They hurt Gaster. By trying to help him, they hurt him, in a way that they could never fix. They wouldn't blame Gaster if he was never truly comfortable around them again, never knowing if they might possibly be CHECKing him at this very moment.

Goss wouldn't do that, and Gaster knew it. But that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things - they had violated the privacy of his very soul, and there was no way for them to take that back.

And they couldn't even do anything with the information they had found! They knew why it was happening, of course. It was obvious, wasn't it?

Whatever Gaster had done to create those children, whatever piece of his body and soul he'd had to give up - it was draining him. Those damn kids that he loved so much were killing him.

It was the only explanation! Nothing else had changed, nothing that would cause such a drastic decrease in health. It had to be them. Especially since the younger one had an almost absurd amount of HP, while the older one only had a single HP! There was something wrong with them. They had to be the ones causing this.

But the problem there, was that Goss could never tell Gaster that. No doubt, the man had already figured out something to that effect - the monster was a genius, for all his dense nature seemed to defy that.

Gaster had to know. But he hadn't done anything about it.

And what could he do? What could a father do, when his children were killing him?

...There was really no answer. No good answer, anyway. It wasn't like Gaster could take back whatever he had given to the children - not without killing them, anyway. And Gaster would never do that.

He had gotten far too attached, in Goss's opinion. Had he forgotten that those two were supposed to be experiments, a way to break the barrier for good? A way to free monsterkind before their hopes fell too low to recover?

But no, that wasn't fair. Goss knew that they were just being bitter, angry and afraid over the thought of losing one of their oldest friends and comrades. 

They had known Gaster for so long, they could hardly remember a time when they hadn't. They could still perfectly picture the small, skinny thing he had been back then, high-strung and always looking like he was two seconds away from having a nervous breakdown. That had been what had triggered their protective instincts in the first place, even though they hadn't known Gaster very well at the time.

It had been hard to get to know Gaster, with that intimidating father of his hanging around all the time. The elder skeleton had always been looming over him in a way that made it difficult to approach Gaster for anything, even a friendly chat.

Goss had hated that monster.

It didn't matter that Gaster, despite his obvious fear and seemingly desperate need to gain his approval, loved his father very, very much. The way he had treated his son wasn't right, and Goss refused to say anything different.

Children should never fear their parents, for any reason. Children should not be kept away like dirty secrets, should not be trained to exhaustion. Children should never be isolated from the rest of the population, told that they didn't belong.

Which... Goss supposed, was what Gaster was trying to prove with his own children.

Goss let out a weary sigh, staring at the door to Gaster's lab. He had once spent all of his time there. Now, he was in Snowdin, having a quiet day in with his sons.

How things change.

It wasn't as if Goss didn't want him to have this happiness. They didn't even begrudge Sans or Papyrus - neither child had asked for this, or had any part in it.

Goss was just so angry, and confused, and hurt, because they knew that there was absolutely nothing they could do.

If things kept going on the way they were, Gaster would die, and there was nothing that they could do.

At one point, they had considered tattling on him to the other scientists, to that fire elemental friend of his in Snowdin, even the King and Queen, but they managed to hold themself back. That wasn't fair.

Even if they only wanted what was best for Gaster, that wasn't their choice to make. If Gaster wanted to keep working in the lab for as long as he could, then they would support him in that.

He had been working extensively on the CORE project, lately. Goss rather suspected that Gaster was hoping to make that machine into his legacy.

Sincerely, Goss hoped that their beloved boss would be able to make it that far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> goss: hm, this seems like a rude thing to do  
> goss: but am i going to do it anyway?  
> goss: yes, obviously, is that even a real question
> 
> we're really getting in there now! hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	16. darkness had no effect upon my fancy

You'd had a revelation. A breakthrough. An astounding discovery!

Honestly, you almost wanted to race out of your lab and shout it to the world, but that would require leaving your experiment, and you would literally rather die than do that.

The CORE sample tests had gone well, and your ideas had been accepted by the monarchy. They still wanted to do that whole 'puzzle' thing or whatever, but at this point you were just taking your victories where you could get them.

But the CORE had actually been going so well, that you had felt confident in handing the major parts of it off to the other scientists in your employ. They could be the ones to figure out how to keep the whole damn thing stabilized while a random person could move the hallways around like they were part of a jigsaw puzzle, you had more important things to be doing.

Well, okay, that wasn't quite true. You were still quite concerned about it, and checked up with your workers whenever you got the chance, but now - !

_ Now, _ you had stumbled upon something truly revolutionary!

You had been studying the barrier again. You had, ah...  _ neglected _ to tell the others about this, because you knew they would only worry about you becoming obsessed.

(Which, admittedly, you may have been in the past.)

But now, you weren't studying for ways to break the damn thing - you were studying the barrier  _ itself. _

It was made of a strange and powerful magic, one that had required seven human souls to power. You had no doubt that soon after making this, the mages responsible had all died from the drain on their magic.

Good riddance.

But that was the kind of thing that everyone knew. What you had been trying to look more into was the energy that the barrier gave off. Because sure, magic did a lot of weird things, but always on purpose. Sometimes spells or attacks would become wonky, but the magic itself was always exactly the way it was meant to be.

So what gave the barrier such a powerful aura? What caused it to make some monsters shudder in fear, and others to become hungry in the face of it?

You had wanted to know  _ that _ , more than anything. But it was rather hard, not only to get proper samples, but also to make any progress!

After all, since you didn't know what you were really looking for, it was hard to tell whether or not something was significant.

You had tried everything to get a reaction, from dumping water on it to shooting it with the strongest attack you had.

Nothing.

The barrier always absorbed it, remaining completely undisturbed without even the slightest discoloration to prove that you had been there. While some might have found that discouraging, you only found it invigorating.

As well as extremely frustrating, but mostly invigorating.

If the barrier was absorbing it, where did that energy go? What happened to it? It couldn't just disappear.

And, if the energy really did get stored somewhere, that meant there was a chance you could harness it, funnel it into something extremely powerful! When you had first started working on it, you were thinking about possibly using the power to help give energy to the CORE, but now, you had much grander designs.

You were going to build a machine - something that could use the power of the barrier to harness the soul energy inside of it!

Just thinking about it was getting you all shaky, wanting to run or jump or just start screaming. You had so much energy! It was like this success had shot you in the chest with adrenaline, and now you couldn't get over it.

Using the power of these human souls to help monsterkind? It would be the very best form of justice you could imagine.

(And maybe, with enough time and enough energy... It could weaken the barrier, allowing monsters to roam free once more.)

...

Gaster was acting suspicious.

That was the first thing on Papyrus' mind that night, and even though it was a bit of an uncharitable thought, he also knew that he was right, so he didn't feel too bad about it. After all, Gaster was always doing suspicious things - it was practically in his nature!

At least this time it seemed to be a  _ good _ suspicious activity, instead of a bad one. Sometimes Gaster would come home, acting very suspicious, only for Papyrus to later be informed that he'd had an accident in the lab, or that he hadn't eaten anything except dry crackers all day. 

Those were the times when Papyrus had to act exasperated and scold his father, because no one else was going to.

It was nice that Gaster was so close to his coworkers, really! Though it might be more accurate to say that his coworkers were close to him. But the consequences of that meant that the other scientists tended to just assume that Gaster knew what he was doing, or they didn't feel comfortable enough to confront him over it.

Which, of course, is understandable. It wasn't like Sans would ever dare to lecture Gaster - Papyrus knew that his brother would break out into a cold sweat at the mere thought of it.

So, it fell on Papyrus to basically be the nagging mother of a fully-grown monster, and make sure that he got proper nutrients and rest every day.

Luckily, those days were becoming few and far between. More and more now, Gaster was being... responsible! When there had been an entire week with no incidents, Papyrus isn't ashamed to say that he shed a single tear.

There had still been slip-ups, obviously, and there were some cases that had resulted in disaster but actually were honest accidents, and Gaster couldn't be faulted for that. He was trying, so very, very much, and Papyrus could see it in him every day.

That's why, instead of getting nervous or confrontational right off the bat, Papyrus decided to wait and see how this one was going to go.

"DID YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY AT THE LAB?" Papyrus said innocently, not letting on that he knew something was up.

Gaster gave him a wild grin, the sort of look he only got after his fifth cup of coffee in an hour.  _ "Good? _ You wouldn't believe how good. It was fantastic!"

"that's really great, g," Sans called over lazily from where he was laying on the couch. "maybe we should be calling you the 'great gaster' from now on."

Papyrus stomped his foot, knowing that Sans was just saying that to get a rise out of him but choosing to completely fall for it anyway. "NO WAY! I'M THE GREAT PAPYRUS! THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH GREATNESS TO GO AROUND, AND THE MAJORITY OF IT MUST ALWAYS BE OWNED BY ME!"

Sans sniggered, and Gaster smiled again, though it was more tamed than before.

"Don't worry, Papyrus," he said assuringly as he patted the smaller skeleton's skull as he passed by. "You have my full support on that, I won't try to steal any of your greatness."

"GOOD, BECAUSE I BITE, YOU KNOW!" Papyrus warned, crossing his arms over his chest and making obnoxious biting sounds with his teeth so that they could see he was being serious.

That only made Sans' laughter worse, until he actually toppled off the couch in his hysterics - which was karma and absolutely what he deserved.

Gaster just chuckled ruefully. "Oh, I know. You were a biter, and a puller, and a puncher. You're lucky that you were also exceedingly adorable, or the King and Queen might have woken up one morning with a basket on their doorstep."

"HEY, DON'T GIVE ME AWAY!" Papyrus cried in outrage, racing up to Gaster to pummel his legs with tiny fists.

"Oh, oh no," Gaster said, groaning dramatically. "You got me! I'm not gonna last much longer..."

Then he slumped on top of Papyrus, ignoring his shrieks of protest as Gaster pretended to be dead.

"UGH! GET OFF!"

"I can't, I'm dead."

"YOU ARE NOT!"

"Of course I am, look at me - I'm all bones!"

There was a very, very disappointed silence, and then Papyrus proceeded to dump Gaster off of him with a huff.

"I'M GOING TO MY ROOM, AND I WOULD PREFER NOT TO BE DISTURBED!" he said, storming off amongst the laughter of his family.

"okay, paps!" "We love you!"

Papyrus only said "UGH!", preparing to go to his sanctuary and avoid all puns for as long as he could.

In the living room, Sans and Gaster sniggered to each other, Gaster walking over to plop himself down on the couch, Sans following.

"so..." the older skeleton child said, glancing up at his creator.  _ "did _ something good happen at work today?"

Gaster beamed at him, still caught up in the high of a successful experiment and the fact that Sans was actually talking to him.

"It's not just good, Sans. If this works - and I have confidence that it will, this could change everything."

...

"Asriel? Asriel, are you there?" Toriel called out, searching frantically for her son.

Oh, Asgore had said that it would be a good idea to go visit the Ruins with Asriel, let him get a look at their history, but he was still just a baby! And now, he had toddled off somewhere and it was all Asgore's -

No. Toriel took a deep breath, calming herself. It wouldn't be fair to blame all of this on her husband. She had been just as eager about the idea, even if she hadn't been the one to suggest it. And it was both her and Asgore that had been distracted enough not to notice when their son wandered away.

The Ruins were not a particularly dangerous place to a fully-grown monster, but they certainly could be to a little one like Asriel. At the moment, Toriel was just grateful that they had yet to implement any traps in the Ruins like they had been planning for a while.

It simply wouldn't do for Asriel to accidentally fall into a pit trap, or get speared through by spikes! Oh no, even the mere  _ thought _ of it was enough to make her shudder!

Toriel redoubled her efforts, making her way through the dimly lit corridors as she called out for her son.

Absently, she noted the red leaves that were strewn all about the place, and frowned at the messiness. Perhaps they should come back to visit more often, simply to make sure that there was proper upkeep.

Froggits and Whimsuns all scattered away from her as she came thundering through, and though Toriel would normally feel terribly guilty about such a thing, right now she knew that there were more pressing concerns.

"Asriel, Asriel!" she called out, getting increasingly desperate. "Are you there?!"

Asgore had traversed into the crumbling remains of the city, searching to see if Asriel had managed to break into one of the buildings. It was unlikely, seeing as those old things were well off the beaten path, but it was worth checking out. If Toriel got to the end of the Ruins and still couldn't find Asriel, then she would go back to join her husband in his efforts.

_ "Asriel!" _

"...Mom!"

Toriel's eyes widened, and then she quickened her pace. That was her son! She had heard her son, over by the huge cliffside!

"Mom!" Asriel called again, and Toriel turned the corner to see him right in front of her. 

She nearly fell to her knees, wanting nothing more than to bring him into her embrace, but...

But he wasn't alone.

"Mom," Asriel said, sounding so horribly concerned. His little green and white striped sweater had torn a bit, and had red smears running up the sleeves. "I think they're hurt! You can heal them, right?"

Using his shoulder as a prop, wearing a striped sweater that was almost exactly the same as Asriel's, was a human child.

They lifted their head, blinking blearily at Toriel. Their gaze seemed unfocused, as if they couldn't quite get their mind working the way they wanted it to.

The child's eyes, despite this, were a bright, piercing red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: wow, things are going pretty well right for me right now! really hope that continues!  
> chara: knock-knock bitch, guess who
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	17. i beheld the corruption of death

"You're sure this is okay?" You asked again, barely able to keep yourself from wringing your hands nervously.

Grillby nodded, only looking faintly exasperated. That man put up with way too much of your bullshit.

"...yes..." he said lowly. "we'll... be fine..."

The bar was open and in full-swing around him, but he had still been kind enough to agree to watch over the boys for the day, to your great relief. You'd really panicked, when you had first gotten that missive from the castle requesting your presence immediately - because what were you going to do with the kids?

You'd thought about asking Dr. Suzy to watch them, since Undyne did spend a lot of time with Papyrus anyway, but you knew that Sans preferred to relax, and when Undyne and Papyrus were together you were afraid that he felt a little left out. This was the closest you could find to a happy medium.

Today was supposed to be a lazy day, which Sans had been thrilled about and Papyrus less so, though he had grudgingly accepted it with the knowledge that at least the family was back together again. Today was supposed to be fun, to be a day of  _ family. _

But of course, you weren't allowed to have nice things, and the King and Queen wanted you at the castle as soon as possible. You were already cutting it close with your stalling here, but you just couldn't help yourself.

What if they got bored, and started causing trouble? What if Papyrus decided that today was one of the days where he wouldn't eat anything except spaghetti? What if -

All the possibilities were just going round and round in your skull. But most of all... You were disappointed. You had wanted to spend this day with them too, spend some quality time with your sons that you felt you had been sorely missing for the last few months.

But,  _ apparently, _ it was not to be.

Giving Grillby one last thankful look, you knelt down, facing the two pouting skeleton children. Well, Papyrus was definitely pouting - Sans' expression would probably be better described as scowling.

"Look, I..." you sighed, wondering if there was really anything you could say here to make the situation better. Probably not, huh? "I don't know how long I'll be gone. I'll try to be back as soon as possible, but I don't know how long that will take. So, be good. And don't terrorize Grillby too much, okay? He's a lot scarier than I am."

The two kids glanced dubiously at Grillby for a moment, and the bartender said nothing, merely staring back at them evenly. Then, they looked at you, disbelieving.

You could only shrug. They hadn't seen Grillby in the War. He had been one of the youngest generals, but he had certainly deserved the title.

"Be good," you repeated once more, and then held out your arms. 

They didn't hesitate, both children falling into the embrace, clutching onto you desperately.

“we’ll be good,” Sans said, muffled against the cloth of your hastily thrown-on lab coat. Papyrus only nodded, his grip on you tightening for a moment.

Your soul ached, but there was nothing you could do. When the King and Queen required your attention, you had to answer.

(Even if you did, perhaps, feel a bit resentful towards your old friends for inconveniencing you like this.)

You let them go, standing to your full height and readjusting your clothes. You gave the boys one final nod, and then headed out the doors of the busy bar, shortcutting away the second it closed.

...

You had wondered, of course, why they would request your presence so suddenly. Most of the time, they waited until you were on duty to discuss any Royal business with you, since that was your job as the Royal Scientist.

You had thought, maybe, that it was something to do with Asriel.

You... were not  _ entirely _ wrong.

"What is this." You voice was flat, completely free of any inflection. It was not a question.

Still, Asgore took it as one, sighing heavily. 

"A human," he answered.

Yes,  _ that _ was quite obvious. You looked down on the creature laying in the bed. Their cheeks were a bright, unnatural red, and they were sweating profusely. A fever, most likely brought on by some kind of infection, based on the nasty injury to their arm.

The limb was obviously broken, and the wound itself was oozing a disgusting residue that you knew to be the body's attempt to fight off bacteria. Still, the whole thing was absolutely atrocious, and you really didn't want to be looking at it.

"More importantly, they are a child," Toriel interjected. She looked tired, but firm. You knew instantly that you weren't going to be getting any support from her on this. "Can you heal them, Doctor? I... I have tried everything I can, but I am not a proficient enough healer for this. My focus has always laid more in offensive magic, I'm afraid."

You could, probably. There was no one Underground who had the extensive knowledge of human bodies that you did. You had done many studies over the years, just trying to understand.

Here was the real problem - did you  _ want _ to? Sure, they were a child... But even a human child is still human.

After everything... Did you really want to have any part of this?

You looked around to the three hopeful faces watching you, even the Prince, standing vigil by the child's side. The line was drawn very clear, here. 

_ Ah. _ Well, perhaps it had been foolish to think that you had any real choice in the matter.

"I'm not that kind of Doctor," you warned, not wanting them to get their hopes up too much. You had the theoretic knowledge, sure, but... You had never exactly expected to apply it in a healing sense, to be honest. You had always been much more interested in taking them apart. "Regardless, I will do what I can."

Toriel beamed, clearly relieved, but Asgore just solemnly inclined his head. He, at least, seemed able to recognize what this actually asked of you, even if he had not said the words out-loud.

Asriel let out a big sigh of relief, looking up at you sparkling eyes. "Thanks, Mr. Weird Skeleton!"

You blinked at the moniker, ignoring the way Toriel immediately flushed and tried to quiet her son.

You gave him a tentative smile back, only feeling more enthused when he returned it without hesitation. Well, if only for that, you would try your best to save this child.

(Even if their death would only benefit you in the long-run.)

Rolling up your sleeves, you got to work.

...

Chara drifted in and out of consciousness for what felt like years, seeing blurry images of strange creatures above them.

_ Was this hell? _ they wondered. Chara had climbed up the mountain, the one that had to be the highest mountain in the world - it made sense that if they fell, they would fall straight into hell.

It was alright, though. This was what they deserved. 

Even if the thought of spending the rest of eternity like  _ this, _ alone and adrift, was actually quite frightening, they were okay with this punishment. It was better than what the villagers would have done to them, at least.

It seemed to take eons (though Chara would later be informed that it had only been about a day and a half), before their vision cleared up enough for them to see clearly,  _ and _ stay awake long enough to enjoy it.

The first thing they saw was an eerie masked face staring down at them.

Chara froze - they would have screamed, if they'd had the energy. But they could do nothing but lay there and watch; watch  _ petrified _ as this masked individual examined them.

The mask was... strange, to say the least. There was no nose hole, for one, and the eye holes were wide and completely black - they seemed to be almost sunken in, like eye-sockets. There was a mouth, kind of, because it was really just a solid straight line.

How did this person breathe? Chara wondered absently, somewhere in the back of their mind. The mask was certainly interesting, but it didn't seem very practical.

Then, somehow, lights lit up in the back of the eyes - tiny white circles, that followed Chara's every move.

Suddenly, Chara got the horrible feeling that it wasn't a mask after all.

The man - creature - thing - whatever it was, then opened its mouth, calling out to someone that Chara couldn't see.

"Your majesties!" it said, with a faint, lilting accent that Chara couldn't quite place. "The human is awake!"

Chara tried to turn their head to see who was entering the room, but they felt inexplicably weak, and another rush of panic went through them. What had happened to them? Had they really fallen down the mountain, or had they been kidnapped by some kind of strange cult?!

Then again, they thought ruefully, a cult was about where they belonged.

Shortly after the first creature called out, two more entered. Chara shrank back against the bed as they approached, resisting the whimper that tried to rise out of their throat.

These ones were big. Sure, the other one was tall, but it was thin, and had spindly limbs that Chara thought they could probably break with one good kick if it came down to it. These ones didn't seem nearly as fragile.

"Child, we are so happy to see you with us," the one with the fancy robes said, its muzzle upturning in something that Chara would have almost described as a smile. "We were so worried."

The other one nodded, its big floppy ears going along with the movement. "Indeed. Your injuries were great, but Doctor Gaster was able to help you pull through, for which we are extremely grateful."

It gestured towards the skinny one with one giant paw, and Chara looked to see it still observing them, still appearing utterly eerie with its arms crossed behind its back.

Chara managed to tear their eyes away, looking back to the two big ones, who were watching them expectantly, as if waiting for some kind of response. What was the right thing to say here? What was the right thing to  _ do? _

Back in the village, they had always known what to do, what to say that could get them out of trouble, who to blame things on and who to run to if things got tough. It hadn't been a  _ good _ life, or a particularly kind one, but it was one where they felt secure in their ability to take care of themself.

Even when they had escaped and headed for the mountain, they had felt like it was still all under control.

But now... Chara didn't feel strong enough to fight, or run. So what could they possibly do?

Shamefully, they felt their eyes well up with tears. Their whole body began shaking, unable to control themself, and Chara looked up at them with nothing but fear in their expression.

"P-Please... Please don't eat me!"

There was a beat of silence, and the two big ones expressions slowly changed, going from bemusement, to shock, to horror.

"Oh, child, we would never - !"

"Young one, please do not fear, we have never - "

But Chara wasn't paying any attention to their babbled apologies and attempts at an explanation. Their focus had been drawn back to the other one... Doctor Gaster, wasn't it?

Gaster was... the thing was actually laughing, clamping its hand over its mouth in an attempt to silence the fits of amusement escaping it. It was  _ laughing _ at Chara's misery, at their plea.

A large part of Chara bristled at the discovery, insulted and hurt that someone would find amusement in their suffering, but another part...

Well, another part of them found the whole thing to be pretty funny too. They supposed the thing that really mattered at this moment, was which part of them would win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chara: i really can't decide whether i like you or not  
> gaster: whatever, it doesn't really matter to me  
> chara: oh buddy, it's gonna
> 
> hey y'all, hope you're enjoying! lemme know what you think. **and, hey!** if you're a fan of my story "you become", i am currently [accepting prompts/requests](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com/post/177444490946/you-become-special) for it over on my tumblr! go ahead and throw one in my inbox! anyway, thanks so much, love y'all <3


	18. that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect

"Ugh..." Undyne groaned, rolling over onto her side and pouting up at her sister. "When can he come over again?? I'm BORED! So bored that I could DIE at any moment!"

"That's unfortunate," Suzy said, sounding completely unmoved. "I'll be sure to say something nice at your funeral."

"UGH!" Undyne repeated, making sure that it was louder and even more bored-sounding than before.

Suzy did not react.

Scowling, Undyne decided that it was time to switch tactics. "Okay, when is Mom coming home?"

Her older sister tensed, for one short moment, but it was enough for Undyne to notice. Then, Suzy relaxed her shoulders, almost managing to pull off the nonchalant look.

"I'm sure she'll be back soon, guppy," Suzy said, and when she looked down to see Undyne's actual discontent, she softened, placing her book on the table and reaching out. "You know that Mom loves you very much. And Papyrus loves to play with you. But right now, both of them have things going on that make it hard for them to be with you in person. That doesn't mean they're not here in spirit, guppy."

Undyne scrunched up her nose at the nickname, and the sentiment. She just didn't understand _why._ She knew that Papyrus was busy because of something with his dad, and that Mom was busy doing... _something_ , but she didn't get why that meant she couldn't go spend time with them!

Chancing a glance at Suzy, she saw that the older monster was once again engrossed in her book.

Well... Maybe she _could_ go to them! Or at least to Papyrus, since she wasn't actually sure where her Mom was right now.

"I'm going to my room!" Undyne declared loudly, jumping off the couch. She stood in front of her sister with her hands on her hips in a scolding pose. "I don't wanna be disturbed, either, so you better not come in!"

"Okay," Suzy said, flipping another page in her book.

Undyne frowned. Sure, she _wanted_ Suzy to be uninterested, but it still kinda sucked.

"Really!" She insisted. "My room has an absolutely no nerds allowed policy!"

"Okay."

Undyne threw her hands up and walked away, grumbling under her breath. There was just no pleasing some people.

Huffing to herself, she turned and really did go to her bedroom, making sure to stomp very loudly every step of the way. Then, she slammed her door for good measure. Suzy still didn't say a word, of course.

Suddenly, Undyne was filled with a horrible frustration. Flopping forward onto her bed, she grabbed a pillow and screamed into it, trying to get rid of this awful feeling inside of her.

It wasn't Suzy's fault - and Undyne knew that she was only taking it out on her sister because she was the most convenient target right now. Perhaps it was for the best that Papyrus couldn't visit right now. He was her best friend, and such a huge goober, she would never want to hurt him. Not like this.

See, Undyne prided herself on being fair. She always gave everyone a chance to prove themselves, and she never, ever attacked the innocent.

But sometimes... sometimes that was really hard. Because Undyne had a lot of passion inside of her, and also a lot of anger, which sometimes didn't go too well together. She thought that her anger was a righteous one - anger at the humans for locking them all down here, for being the reason that Undyne had never seen the sun, anger at her mother for constantly running away from her responsibilities, anger at a lot of things.

Oh, _yeah._ Undyne knew the real reason that Mom was never around. It was because she didn't want them, didn't know how to _handle_ them. For as long as she could remember, it had always been Suzy taking care of her. Sure, once in a while their mother liked to waltz back in and pretend to care for a little while, but it never lasted long. Never enough to be significant, anyway.

And... _Maybe,_ Undyne grudgingly admitted to herself, that was also a part of why she was feeling so angry and gross right now.

Papyrus had a Dad, one who loved him a lot. He was weird, of course, just like Papyrus and Sans were, but he loved them so clearly, and was always trying his best for them.

And now, just because he was off doing business for the King and Queen for a few days, Papyrus suddenly 'didn't feel up to playing' anymore??

Undyne screamed into her pillow again, trying to muffle the sound as much as possible.

_How was that fair?!_ Undyne tried to be fair and honest and all those other good things, because she wanted to _be_ good, but the world just seemed intent on rubbing it in her face!

It wasn't Papyrus' fault, or Sans', or their weird Dad. In the end, none of this even really had anything to do with them. Undyne was just hurting, and lashing out, and couldn't stand to see a happy family when hers had been torn at the seams for so long.

She had been able to tolerate it before, when things had kinda still seemed rocky between the three of them, but now they were all so blissfully _happy._

How was she supposed to be okay with that? Why should Papyrus be happy when she wasn't?

At that nasty thought creeping into her brain, Undyne let out a deep breath. She relaxed her tense muscles, and just allowed herself to sink into the bedcovers.

No, that wasn't fair. She had said it before, and she meant it - Papyrus was her best friend. Of course she wanted him to be happy. And maybe she felt a little bitterness over it, but that didn't have to change anything about her relationship with him.

Undyne would treat him just the same, no matter what. Papyrus would always be her best friend, even if he had the most perfect life in the world.

Mind made up, Undyne nodded to herself in determination.

"Okay!" she said out-loud, though in as hushed a tone as she could manage. "Let's do this!"

Undyne moved over to her window, doing her best to keep the noise level to a minimum. Just because Suzy didn't seem like she was paying attention didn't mean that she _actually_ wasn't, as Undyne had unfortunately discovered on more than one occasion.

But, at the same time, Undyne was used to sneaking out by now. She went to the Garbage Dump all the time, and she went to visit old man Gerson too! She'd visited their neighbors once or twice, but the Blook family snail farm wasn't exactly... the most _exciting_ of places. And Napstablook was certainly nice and all, but their cousins were real pieces of work - all of them were either extremely arrogant, violent, indifferent, or a horrible combination of the three. No wonder Napstablook was the nicest of the bunch.

Regardless, none of those places were her destinations right now. She knew that Gaster wasn't back from the Castle yet, because Suzy was still complaining about how things were at the lab, which probably meant that Sans and his weird brother were alone in Snowdin. Well, maybe not _alone,_ but they were definitely in Snowdin, and since she wasn't there it was practically the same thing!

So that was where she was going to go - Snowdin, the home of the Gaster family!

...

Suzy let out an amused huff as she heard the window in Undyne's bedroom close, and the girl herself run around to the front of the house, not even bothering to duck under any of the windows. Undyne was clever, and could even be cunning when she wanted to be, but she was most certainly not _subtle._

Of course she knew about her little sister's escapades - what kind of a responsible guardian would she be if she didn't? It was really for the best that Suzy go along with it anyway, considering... Well.

Considering what they were. At the thought, Suzy frowned, and grumbled little to herself, putting a bookmark in the medical journal she was reading and setting it aside.

Monsters were all so different. They all lived under one kingdom (almost literally), with one royal family. But they were really all quite different from each other.

Their family was the prime example of that. Women only, never a man born into the line nor would there ever be, and every single one of them was strong. Defiant. Unbeatable.

Like their mother always said, you might be able to beat them in a battle of endurance, but never one of willpower.

And, y'know... that was great. In an actual battle, in a time and place where the war was still going on. Now, it had only become their downfall.

Because, you see - it had changed something in them, this willingness to fight and protect above all. Suzy hesitated to use the word _obsession,_ but it did fit.

They… they _needed_ things. A cause, a duty, a person. Everyone in their family needed _something_ to latch onto, something to keep them going.

For Suzy, that was science. It always had been, since she was little. And by itself that was fine, but it was made even better by Doctor Gaster taking her in, mentoring her, allowing her to use her obsession in a way that was useful, _beneficial_ even!

She owed him a lot for that, no doubt. She owed him for many, many things.

Undyne's obsession was... a bit harder to pinpoint. At first, Suzy had thought that it was just straight-up fighting. After all, nothing put a bigger smile on her little sister's face than when she was off chasing down the 'bad guys' and beating the heck out of them. But that wasn't quite right.

She wasn't just in it for the adrenaline rush, or the sense of power. No, Undyne was in it for the end result, for Suzy to praise her and tell her that she'd done the right thing.

Suzy suspected that her sister's obsession might actually be something along the lines of 'justice', but it was difficult to say for sure. Despite everything, Undyne was still young. She had time to grow and change, and figure out what it is she wanted more than anything else.

And that... that, right there, was the problem. 'More than anything else'. That's what it means to have an obsession - it means more to you than any person, or thing, or sometimes even emotion. It took a lot to break out of that mindset once you had fallen into it, and more than once, Suzy had fallen.

Luckily, she was fortunate enough to have friends and colleagues that would extend their hand to her, in case she ever needed it. Even though all of the scientists had really come together because of Gaster and what he represented, they had become something strong despite that.

Honestly, Suzy was happy that Undyne was making friends of her own, people that she knew she could turn to if things ever became dire. With an obsession like hers, no matter what it really is, Suzy knew that she would keep running off into danger, regardless of anything that got in her way.

She was a lot like their Mother, in that way. Suzy never mentioned that little tidbit to her sister, since she was already sour enough about this whole thing, but... Suzy was still thinking about it. There was nothing she could do to stop it, but in the back of her head she prayed that someone would be able to stop Undyne if she tried to do anything stupid.

Heh... Yeah, it was pretty difficult to look after a kid like this, and absolutely miserable on the worst days.

But Suzy watched out of the corner of her eyes as her sister snuck past the window, apparently thinking she was the epitome of stealth despite her bright red hair been somewhat of a giveaway, and thought, well -

They were gonna be okay. Despite everything, she had to believe that they were gonna be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suzy: hm... there's a strange chill in the air  
> foreshadowing: you can't escape me forever suzy  
> suzy: probably nothing
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	19. i avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence

Sans flopped face-first onto the couch, letting out a groan of despair.

Why was Gaster  _ taking so long?? _

It had already been a couple of days, and he had only popped in once or twice to see how they were doing! On top of that, he was refusing to tell them why he had been called away in the first place - said that it was the business of the Royal Family, and not theirs.

As if! It was affecting their lives enough that it  _ was _ their business, whether Gaster liked it or not.

Honestly, at this point Sans was tempted to sneak into the castle and find out for himself. The only thing that was really holding him back was the fact that he wasn't sure that he could teleport from there and back reliably, and he didn't want to get stuck somewhere.

Well, that  _ and _ the fact that Papyrus would throw a huge fit if Sans tried to leave him behind, which made it much harder for him to sneak around.

It wasn't like he was having a terrible time. He was just lazing around all day, as he preferred to do. But it just wasn't the same.

Grillby was great - in the hours that Gaster wasn't able to shortcut over for a few minutes, he would check up on them, making sure that they were eating and not causing too much mischief. Honestly, Sans felt a lot of gratitude towards the guy.

It's just... The whole situation just  _ sucked. _ It wasn't fun to sit around and do nothing when he was nearly drowning in his anxiety. Without Gaster, it seemed pointless to try and relax.

Sans wasn't the only one, either! Papyrus was getting increasingly antsy as time went on, switching between moping in his room and creating increasingly elaborate blueprints of his spike puzzles. Sans was beginning to get a little concerned about that, actually - there was only so many times you could add the word 'doom' to a puzzle before it became a legitimate health hazard, after all.

_ Ugh... _ That was another one of those things that Gaster would have been able to help with. He wasn't much one for puzzles himself, but he encouraged Papyrus in the hobby, and showed him how to make sure that everything worked safely.

Sans was no good at this, honestly. He could never deny his brother anything, even when it was something he suspected might be bad for his health. 

Especially  _ now, _ when Papyrus looked so abjectly miserable. If something wasn't done soon, Sans was pretty sure that there would be no house left for Gaster to come home to.

(Papyrus' last design had involved several flamethrowers and a spike cannon. Sans would have been impressed if it weren't for the fact that Papyrus had apparently decided to set up his test version in the middle of the living room.)

Seriously, Sans wasn't sure how much longer they were going to last without Gaster. Though the monster would never be described as a fully rational adult, he was certainly rational enough to prevent something like this.

Sans let himself melt further into the soft plush, attempting to become one with the couch. Maybe if he stayed here and joined the mysterious couch colony ruled by loose change and forgotten socks, he would finally be able to just sleep his troubles away.

That was another thing - despite his long-standing record and passion towards it, he hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep since Gaster was called away. It was horrible, awful! An absolute  _ tragedy! _

Heh...

Sans kinda wanted to joke it off, saying that all of his time sleeping was finally catching up to him, but he knew that there was more to it than that. It was the look on Gaster's skull the first time he had managed to slip away and come check on them. 

He refused to answer any questions on the matter, but Sans was perceptive, and he could see more than what Gaster reported.

Most importantly, he could tell what Gaster  _ wasn't _ saying. An issue within the Royal Family? It had to be something big, something  _ life-changing _ to require this much secrecy. The Dreemurrs typically operated with the policy that they had nothing to gain from lying to their subjects, and updated the kingdom constantly with any new affairs and reports.

It just didn't make sense for Gaster to be so secretive about it, and that's without mentioning the way he seemed to be always vibrating with some kind of boundless energy. Not in the same way as Papyrus, mind you, but in a more... scientific fashion, if that made sense. 

Gaster never kept anything from them unless he thought it could be detrimental to their health. Which...  _ really _ didn't help Sans' worry over the situation they'd found themselves in.

Throwing his hands over his head, he resisted the urge to throw a childish tantrum. Papyrus was up in his room, and Grillby was going to stop by in a few hours to make sure that they hadn't skipped lunch.

It was not  _ necessarily _ the best day Sans had ever experienced, but he would make due. He had to.

(No matter how worried he was about Gaster's falling HP, of the dark look in his eyes when he came home on the first day with some kind of strange red fluid sticking to the sleeves of his lab coat.)

Deciding that he was done moping for now, Sans sat up and pulled himself off the couch. If he couldn't teleport himself into the damn castle and  _ force _ Gaster to come home, then he would do his best with what he had here.

Shuffling through the assorted books and magazines on the coffee table, Sans tried to find something that would entertain his baby brother without boring Sans to death in the process. Fluffy Bunny was great, really, but even a great story could become boring when someone was forced to read it every single day.

He was just about to give up and go try to beg Papyrus to watch a movie with him or something, when he heard a noise.

A  _ crashing _ noise, coming from Papyrus' room upstairs.

_ Oh no. _

Sans raced up the stairs in a panic, hoping desperately that his little brother hadn't gotten impatient and decided to test out his puzzle in his room or something. That would have disastrous results.

Where the heck had he managed to find a flamethrower in the first place, let alone  _ two _ of them??

Nearly tripping over his own feet, Sans raced to the bedroom door, knocking frantically.

"bro? bro?!" he said, resisting the urge to just ignore the social niceties and teleport in. "is everything okay? i heard a loud noise!"

"EVERYTHING IS FINE!" Papyrus said loudly -  _ nervously. _ "THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR YOU TO COME IN HERE, AT ALL. IN FACT, I WOULD VERY MUCH PREFER IF YOU DIDN'T."

There was a shuffling noise, and then it sounded like Papyrus was whispering... arguing? With himself?

"is there someone in there with you?" Sans said, his brow furrowed. He had no idea how that could have happened, but it was the only thing he could think of. "bro, if that dog is bothering you again, you can just let me - "

"NO, NO! I HAVE IT HANDLED, THANK YOU!" Papyrus cut him off hastily.

Sans frowned, but ultimately let it go. Some weird little white dog had been invading the house recently, and though it loved to try and gnaw on all of the residents bones, it seemed to have a particular fondness for Papyrus'.

Well... There was no  _ real _ reason for him to interfere in that, he supposed, even though Papyrus was acting very suspicious.

If it was actually something bad, or dangerous, Papyrus wouldn't try to keep it to himself. Sans knew that, at least.

"alright, bro..." he said slowly, wrestling down his overprotective urges. "i'll be downstairs, so just let me know if you need anything."

"OKAY! THANK YOU!"

That was a clear dismissal if he'd ever heard one. Sans trudged back downstairs, trying to keep his suspicions under wraps.

Whatever was going on, it probably wasn't anything  _ too _ bad. He hoped.

...

Papyrus turned around to glare at Undyne, his hands on his hips. 

"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE," he said pointedly.

She only laughed, shaking off the melted slush that she had accumulated on her jacket from her trudge through Snowdin.

"Aw, lighten up! It's been way too long, I wanted to hang!"

"IT'S ONLY BEEN A COUPLE OF DAYS," Papyrus grumbled, but didn't protest it anymore. Honestly, he had been wanting to hang out with Undyne too, everything was just... too stressful, at least for right now.

Just when he thought he'd been getting his family back, everybody finally  _ happy _ again... Gaster had been forced to leave. 

It wasn't  _ his _ fault - they were all well aware of how important his job was, and what it required of him.

But it still sucked. 

It didn't matter that Gaster had been doing this for long before either of them were born, that he had in fact created them while trying to do his job in destroying the barrier. The great responsibility and privilege he held meant nothing when it kept him away from his family.

Of course, Papyrus was biased. He could admit that easily enough. But he didn't think that made his point any less valid.

For a moment, he considered bringing it up to Undyne, asking for her opinion, but dismissed it almost immediately - she was surprisingly touchy on these types of topics. He figured that it had something to do with her Mother, who Papyrus still hadn't met despite spending time at Undyne's house nearly every day.

He wouldn't bring it up, though - he was the Great Papyrus! He never wanted to do something that would make his friend uncomfortable, or unhappy. That would just be mean.

Instead, he decided to change the subject.

"WELL, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE," he declared, reluctantly smiling back at his friend when she gave a huge, excited grin. "WE HAVE A LITTLE TIME BEFORE MY BROTHER REALLY GETS SUSPICIOUS. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?"

"Uh, DUDE!" Undyne yelled, shaking her fist at him for some unknown offense. "We HAVE to finish making our battle strategy from before! Go get your action figures!"

"THEY'RE BATTLE FIGURINES!" Papyrus said insistently, but didn't bother to argue it any further. Truth be told, he had actually been thinking about that for a while now, so he didn't really have any complaints.

Papyrus darted around the room, gathering up all of his toys and setting up the battlefield exactly how they'd had it last time, when they were in deadly battle against the human forces.

"OKAY! NOW, REMEMBER THAT GENERAL FLUFF-BUTT IS INJURED, SO HE HAS TO STAY ON THE SIDELINES! AND POOR TWIG HAS BEEN CAPTURED, AND IS CURRENTLY BEHIND ENEMY LINES."

"Yeah, but it's okay!! The rest of the squad is gonna go after them and get their buddy back! And then we can WRECK the humans, no problem!"

"WE SHALL SEE!"

...

You rubbed a hand over your skull, tired beyond all belief.

This... This had been completely  _ ridiculous. _ You weren't quite sure whether you really regretted it or not, considering how fascinating the venture had been from a scientific standpoint, but in your personal opinion, it had been blown entirely out of proportion.

You'd been kept away from your home, from your  _ children, _ for nearly three days, only able to pop in every once in a while after you'd managed to sneak away from the frantic King and Queen.

It was utterly baffling to you. Why would they try so hard to save a human, even if they were a child? Did it really matter? Human children grew into human adults, after all. Were they  _ really _ worth saving?

In this case, however, you had no say in the matter. In fact, you'd had no real say in any of this, which was what had really annoyed you.

You respected Asgore and Toriel greatly, and has called them your friends for many years. But if they kept trying to pull shit like this, you were seriously going to lose it.

You shook your head, trying to dislodge such an uncharitable (and possibly treasonous) thought. You were on your way home, to stay this time. You'd already called the lab and told them that you were going to stay home for a couple of days, barring any extreme emergencies.

You were gonna give your kids the family time that you owed them.

Opening the front door, you called out; "I'm home!"

For a long moment, there was no response. Blinking curiously, you stepped further into the house. Tilting your skull up to look pensively at the ceiling, you could faintly hear the sound of Papyrus, and... Undyne?

Hm. You were pretty sure  _ that _ wasn't supposed to be happening.

Oh well. You headed over to the couch, intending to sit and just relax for a second before you had to go break up the fun, and nearly sat on your son's head.

Sans was laying down on the couch, fully asleep.

You almost reached out, wanting to wake him up and make sure he knew you were back, but...

That could wait, for at least a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gaster: hey guys i'm back -  
> *the house is completely wrecked, and currently on fire*  
> sans: you really should have seen this coming
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	20. i had a persuasion that i should be supposed mad

“Up, up!” You said excitedly, yanking the blanket off of Sans. “We need to _go,_ get up!” 

“ugh, g, no...” Sans complained, groping blindly for his precious cover. “i don’t wanna...”

“Too bad!” You said imperiously. “Up!”

Sans let out another groan, but grudgingly began to shuffle out of bed. You let him go after a second to make sure he was actually moving, but you weren’t too worried about it.

Over the years you’d had the boys, this scene had repeated itself many times over. Usually it was just trying to get him ready for school, but today you had something else in mind.

You didn’t even bother to run down the stairs, instead just shortcutting directly into the kitchen and making Papyrus jump in surprise.

“G!” he yelped, and it greatly amused you to note that he had the exact same tone as Sans in that moment. “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STOP DOING THAT!”

“Yes, you did,” you said, tilting your skull in confusion. Why was he bringing that up now?

Papyrus scowled at you, hunching protectively over his breakfast cereal like he thought you were going to shortcut into _that_ next. 

“DON’T PRETEND TO BE IGNORANT, IT DOESN’T SUIT YOU,” He sniffed imperiously, turning away from you.

You chuckled, letting your blank expression drop. You just couldn’t help it - Papyrus was simply too fun to tease. “Yes, yes. I understand.”

“AND YOU WON’T DO IT AGAIN?” Papyrus said, glaring at you suspiciously out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t like to lie, Papyrus.”

“UGH!” He vocalized, throwing his hands up in one of his patented dramatic gestures. “FINE! BUT DON’T BE SURPRISED WHEN YOU EVENTUALLY GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK, AND YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE GUILT OF CAUSING MY DEATH FOR THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE EXISTENCE.”

“Ouch. That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?” You said, bringing your hand up to try and hide your amusement. It didn’t help very much, of course, since you had a large hole in the middle of your palm, but he was kind enough not to call you out on it.

“SINCE IT HAS YET TO DETER YOU, I WOULD SAY THAT IT IS NOT NEARLY HARSH ENOUGH!” Papyrus insisted, standing up from the table to put his bowl in the sink.

You stiffened at the sight, still unable to process how much the child had grown. Papyrus wasn’t anywhere near your own impressive height, but he had shot up like a weed as time went on, and you had no doubt that he would surpass you easily enough.

It was an exhilarating thought, if a slightly terrifying one. Who would have thought that you would ever get this far?

Now, on the other hand (heh), Sans had barely grown at all.

You heard the sound of him stumbling down the steps, and turned to observe his descent. Despite all of your research, you had yet to find a reason why your eldest son’s growth was so stunted.

A part of you _really_ hoped that it was something natural, that it wasn't a result of your own inadequacies. But you knew better than to trust that.

Sans' HP remained absolutely abysmal for no reason that you could fathom, and hadn't gained a single point from the day he was born. That, more than anything, was a cause for concern.

At the same time, well... Sans was clever, and more durable than he appeared. You didn't _necessarily_ worry about him getting involved in something he couldn't handle, but you did worry about his mental state.

With low HP like that, it had been proven that the individual is more prone to anxiety and depression, conditions that were exacerbated by the natural stress involved when one had low HP.

You had done a lot of work into this over the past few years, spending your free time doing your own research, and your time at the lab trying to improve the lives of monsters. As much as you might have wanted to spend all of your time trying to find a way to bolster Sans' health, you simply couldn't afford it.

Now, more than ever, the King and Queen were counting on you to break the barrier. They never said it outright, of _course,_ but ever since they had adopted that human child...

They had hope in their souls again. They wanted to see the sun, to show their children what the outside world looked like. And they wanted to do it before Chara died.

Humans live such short lives, really. What a shame.

Your smile twitched, but you forcibly brought yourself back under control when Sans glanced at you in concern.

"everything alright, g?" he asked, looking a little cautious.

"Just fine," you said, nodding to him in greeting. "Are you ready to head out?"

Sans blinked, utterly bemused, and Papyrus did the same from beside him.

"uh... you know that school doesn't start for another hour, right?" Sans said slowly, sounding like he was afraid that you'd gone senile.

You waved a hand, dismissing the statement. "Yes, yes. But I've already called you both out for the day. You're coming to the lab with me!"

"WAIT, WHAT?" Papyrus said, flabbergasted. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?! THIS IS A BIG THING TO JUST SPRING ON SOMEONE, YOU KNOW."

"I like to keep you both sharp," you said serenely. The real reason was because you knew that they would try to wriggle out of it, given the chance.

Both boys had enjoyed going to the lab when they were younger, but somehow the appeal had worn off rather quickly. Now that they had the appearance and mental capacity of young teenagers ("PRACTICALLY ADULTS!" "yeah, g. when are we gonna start paying taxes?" "NO, NOT LIKE THAT. THE FUN PART, BROTHER."), they weren't as easily entertained as they used to be.

It was somewhat baffling to you, seeing as you found the lab _very_ entertaining, but you couldn't fault them for not having the same endurance for such things as you. After all, before they were created, you used to spend nearly every waking moment in the lab. And every non-waking moment was spent on the couch, also in the lab.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit of a problem. You hadn’t even considered it until Sans and Papyrus had begun nagging you about getting home on time, but now, looking back - yeah, it probably wasn’t the healthiest use of your time.

That’s not to say that you had any less passion or enjoyment of your work than you did before. Now, you just went home at night instead of falling asleep on your lab’s table, which the kids certainly appreciated.

Your scientists, too, were almost irrationally thrilled by the prospect. Had you truly been so bad, before...?

Oh well. You shook your head, clearing your mind of such thoughts. Today was a day for science!

“I’M NOT SURE IF I SHOULD REALLY BE MISSING SCHOOL...”

“yeah, there’s a, uh, big project coming up. should probably work on that. real important stuff.”

“If it’s really important stuff, than I’m sure you have plenty of time to get started,” you said breezily, ignoring the way both of them groaned in despair. “I’m not taking no for an answer! This is _huge,_ you have to be there!” 

“what’s huge?” Sans said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his favorite blue hoodie. “you still haven’t even told us what this is about.”

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, then I’m not going to tell you,” you refuted, turning away from them pointedly.

It was in a mostly joking manner, but you were kinda serious about this. How long had you been working on this project? How much had they heard you talk about it?

If they seriously couldn’t figure it out, then you weren’t going to help them. Served them right for not paying attention.

“IS THIS ABOUT THE CORE?” Papyrus said, sounding far more long-suffering than he really had any right to.

“woah, what?” Sans said, seeming genuinely surprised. Then his expression changed, excitement making itself known in the way his eyelights lit up. “has construction finally finished? you guys ready to turn it on?”

“Quite possibly!” You said brightly, your earlier annoyance completely forgotten. You couldn’t possibly stay angry with them, not during such a momentous occasion. “Today is going to be the final checks, and I’m going to do one last sweep of the place, but if everything goes well then we can start operation today!”

Sans grinned up at you, swept up in the enthusiasm, and even Papyrus seemed a bit more eager now. They knew about the CORE, since you had been praising and cursing the thing in equal measure, but you didn’t care about any of your earlier complaints right now.

Sure, once everything was over and done with, you would go straight back into complaining, but for now, you were just excited that this creation that you and your scientists had worked on for so long, something that would help so many monsters, was finally close to completion.

It wasn’t like the construction was really the hard part, after all - though the moving hallways certainly hadn’t helped in that regard. Not that you were, y’know. Bitter.

The real difficulty had been in the actual _power,_ the science behind this grand creation. You were using Hotland’s natural environment, of course, but there was also many other components that weren’t so easy to harness. 

No matter - it had been done, and now you could go to enjoy the results.

“when are we leaving?” Sans said, actually peeking up a bit now that he knew what they were planning.

“Right now,” you said promptly. “Follow me, please.”

Heading for the front door, you opened it and stepped through. You walked directly into the front entrance for the CORE, watching the lights above the door flash with a hint of triumph.

“Here we are,” you said eagerly, gesturing for the boys, who had followed right behind you. At this point, they were quite used to your shortcuts, and had no problems following along, even though Papyrus complained that it was far too lazy for him. “Come in, come in! I have some official things to get done, but after that I can give you a real tour.”

“IF YOU INSIST,” Papyrus sighed, though you could see a bit of a smile lurking in his expression.

Sans only grinned, poking you in the side. “go ahead, g. the faster we get through the boring stuff, the sooner we can have some fun.”

Beaming, you gestured for them to follow you, and started moving further in.

Well, despite all the hardship and annoyance that went into this damn thing, you couldn’t deny just how radiant the final project had turned out to be. Perhaps not everyone else would have the same opinion with you on that, but you could hardly find it in yourself to care.

It was magnificent. The beautiful meld of science and magic that you had always dreamed it would be. Everything about it just made you feel more giddy - the hiss of steam, the pulsing blue lights, everything. Even the damn puzzles were growing on you.

The steam, of course, was coming from the huge chunks of ice that were falling from the conveyer belt and into the boiling lava that was helping to power the core. You had realized quickly that the machine produced a lot of power, but it also required a lot, and you didn’t want it to get overheated. That’s where Ice Wolf, one of the residents of Snowdin, had kindly volunteered to step in. With him throwing the large chunks of ice his family had learned to produce, they were able to go through a diverted path in the river and finally get here, to keep everything stable.

And it was _working._ How magnificent! You’d hoped that it would, obviously, and expected as much, it it was still a wonderful achievement. 

And honestly, most of all... You were just glad that you were able to be here, sharing this moment with the two monsters who had changed your life so utterly, your children.

After all, the CORE may very well be your greatest invention, if your little side project didn’t amount to anything. You wanted the boys to be able to experience your legacy firsthand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *theme song from jaws starts playing in the distance*  
> sans: hey what's that  
> gaster: hm, what?  
> *sound slowly starts getting closer*  
> gaster: probably nothing, why?
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	21. and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue

SixOne smiled, trying to keep his tail from twitching too much and displaying his distress. It wasn't anything... _bad,_ necessarily. He was just always vaguely distressed in one way or another, and he didn't want to bring down the mood on his boss' big day.

"This, over here, is the reactor," Gaster was explaining to his two sons, who were following along even if it wasn't with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm.

He was gesturing to the glowing piece of machinery behind him, the view partially cut off by the steam rising from the lava.

Just getting _near_ the damn thing was enough to make SixOne want to have a panic attack. He, along with all of the other scientists, had been very adamant about the safety precautions needed in the CORE to make sure that no one got hurt, but the King and Queen had refused to listen. They thought that making it have _moving hallways_ was more important!

Ugh.

They weren't bad monsters, or even bad _rulers,_ but as far as SixOne was concerned, they had no right to override the decisions of scientists who had far more experience in the subject.

Then again, what did he know? He was just some lackey, after all, an imposter in a job he didn't deserve. He probably stole the opportunity from someone far more worthy than him, he was just so _awful_ -

"Doctor, I didn't know you were here!" Gaster said, approaching with his kids and managing to interrupt SixOne's thought process easily.

"Oh, uh, yeah," he stuttered, wringing his paws in a nervous gesture that he couldn't even begin to control. "I knew you were, uh, coming in today, and I figured that I could... help. With something."

He trailed off, feeling so _stupid._ Of course Gaster didn't need his help - it was _Gaster!_ The Royal Scientist, and the smartest monster he had ever met! To even say that he might need help was an insult, SixOne should just go and throw himself into the lava right now -

"That would be wonderful," Gaster nodded, unknowingly cutting right through SixOne's awful train of thought once again. "I was planning on going over to check on some of the panels on the east side, and I'm no good at those blasted puzzles. Would you care to join us?"

SixOne brightened, his negative thoughts washed away by the invitation from his idol. "O-Of course, sir!"

He fell in step beside the other Doctor, tail flicking back and forth. SixOne glanced at Gaster out of the corner of his eye, taking in how much _better_ the man looked.

Sure, he knew that a lot of his fellow scientists had worried about him in the beginning, worried if he was ready for the responsibility of dealing with two young children, but Gaster had done wonderfully.

Sans and Papyrus were great kids, and SixOne was pretty fond of them, even if he didn't get to see them too often anymore. He still remembered when he'd first met Papyrus - right after the little guy had come out of his tube, really!

His cheeks had hurt for weeks thanks to the babybone's yanking, but he hadn't really minded.

And now, seeing how much Papyrus had grown... it was astounding, really. Papyrus was nearly as tall as him now, and he still had the physicality of a young teenager! SixOne was sure that Papyrus would end up being a giant, even taller than his father. What a strange thought.

Sans had stayed as small as ever, but that didn't mean he wasn't more mature. His physique had changed, even if his height hadn't.

(It was still a bit weird to look at them, and see how utterly _different_ they were from Gaster. SixOne tried not to think about it, because that road didn't lead to anywhere good, but... the thought was still there.)

"S-So, um," he said, bringing his mind back to the present and catching Gaster's attention. "How is your side project going, sir?"

Gaster had been working on it during every spare minute he had, and SixOne could admit to some crazy amounts of curiosity. The older monster was keeping it all close to the chest, so he hadn't really told anyone else what was going on.

"Quite well, I believe. Thank you for asking," Gaster said, nodding to his coworker in acknowledgment. SixOne sputtered, his the fur on his cheeks flushing in embarrassment, but he refrained from saying anything. "It remains to be seen if it will actually have the effect that I'm hoping for, but I should be ready to have the data looked over soon. Would you mind helping me with that?"

SixOne gaped, but he managed to bring himself back under control quickly enough. He was absolutely _thrilled._

"I would love to, sir!" he answered definitively, the mere thought of it enough to pump him up. Getting to help Gaster personally, on a project that he so obviously deemed important? That was the dream!

"Wonderful," Gaster said, lips quirking up into a faint smile. "I look forward to it."

SixOne beamed. This was another thing that he really had to thank the kids for - Gaster had opened up so much since he took them in. Any happy or even mildly pleasant expression he had tried to take before had only looked like it was hurting him - Gaster hadn't so much _smiled_ as he had _grimaced._ But now? Now, he looked _happy._

And SixOne could never be more grateful. His relationship with his own family was strained (only a deadbeat brother, and a nephew that he barely ever got to visit - he sent them some money every month from his salary, but his brother refused any more interaction than that), so his fellow scientists and workers at the lab were truly important to him. It felt a little silly, saying something like that about his coworkers, but it was true.

Thanks to Gaster, who saw _him,_ saw his potential and not just his nervous disposition, he got to work at an amazing lab in a job he had only ever dreamed of, with coworkers who treated him like one of their own.

How could he _not_ be excited?

Even though his paws were still shaking with nerves, he couldn't help but feel honored. SixOne may not know much about whatever project Gaster was working on currently, but he would do his best to help with it.

After all, that was the very least he owed Gaster for everything the older monster had done for him.

...

You were glad to see that Doctor SixOne appeared to be in higher spirits. He'd always had a problem with anxiety and just general nervousness, so you tried to help relieve him of it whenever you could.

For a long time, it had seemed like an impossible task to you - but after dealing with Sans' mood swings and depressive tendencies, along with Papyrus' insecurities, this wasn't nearly as daunting as you had once thought it to be.

Anything you could do to help your fellow scientists, you wanted to do it. You always had, but you had never had the know-how before. You might have had the resources, but without the proper knowledge all of those things meant nothing to you.

Oftentimes, you found yourself mourning the lost time. You mourned all of the things you could have done, the accomplishments you could have made, the progress that could have been put into place...

But there was truly no way for you to change the past. That was why you were working so hard to make a better future.

You wanted to see it. You wanted to see the world with your sons, to show them where you had grown up, the fields you and your father had roamed -

~~( - the castle where your mother had died - )~~

\- _everything._ You wanted them to know that they weren't lesser, that they weren't mindless beasts. That just because they were monsters, they didn't have to be worthless.

(You never, ever wanted your children to suffer the way you did.)

"g?" Sans said quietly, dragging you out of your thoughts. Papyrus had engaged SixOne in conversation, so Sans must have noticed you falling behind a little bit.

You quickly caught up with the rest of the group, giving him a slight smile and a nod.

Damn... You had been losing concentration far too much lately. Ever since you began helping that human on the order of the King and Queen, you had felt entirely too off-balance. That was partially why you had been so excited about the actualization of the CORE project - a part of you had hoped that this victory would be enough to keep your mind from drifting.

It had worked, but only somewhat. As soon as you found yourself distracted from your task, you went right back into brooding, with little escape.

Honestly, you had to be thankful that Sans had picked up on your mood so quickly. (He was surprisingly good at that sort of thing.) You would hate to ruin what was shaping up to be a very monumental occasion.

"No need to worry about me," you said lightly, reaching out and patting Sans' skull gently, ignoring the way his face scrunched up and he swatted your hand away. "I was just lost in thought."

"well, don't get lost for too long," Sans said, still looking a bit grumpy. "i'd hate for you to wander off permanently."

You only laughed softly, shaking your head.

"No need to worry about that," you said. "I still have far too much work to do."

"workaholic," Sans said, but the word itself was fond.

You just shrugged. It was true, after all - though you could proudly say that you had become a lot better after the boys had come into your care.

"Speaking of which, we're here," you said, coming to a stop as you saw that accursed puzzle just ahead of you.

You eyed it with a scowl, disapproving greatly of its presence here. You wouldn't dare to get rid of it after having Asgore and Toriel ask for them all to be put in, but you were sure as hell going to _complain_ about it.

Walking up to it, you stalled for a long moment as you tried to figure out what to do. Curses. All this new-fangled tech was really getting to you. What happened to the good old days where monsters just used magic for everything, and a poor, simple scientist was left to violate the laws of the natural world in peace?!

Seriously, if everyone had spent all of this time on puzzles before like they were now, Sans and Papyrus would have never been created. That was just the stone-cold truth.

...Okay, maybe you were exaggerating just a little bit. But puzzles _really_ weren't your thing.

"Papyrus, would you care to do the honors?" You said, taking a step back and making it look like you were allowing him to do it on his own, and not the fact that you kinda just didn't know what you were supposed to be doing.

You hadn't been the one to design the puzzles in the CORE - that was Goss, all the way. And considering that the two of you had a rather strained relationship these days (and thus barely even spoke to each other), there was no way that you would go to them for help.

Besides, Papyrus was good at puzzles, and actually enjoyed them. This was something that he could participate in, to keep him from feeling left out.

And that's exactly what he did - a big smile on his face as he skipped forward and easily completed the puzzle, shooting out small beams at targets in a way that really mystified you. Nevertheless, it was clear now.

"Thank you, excellent work," you said, unable to resist a grin at the way your youngest son beamed at you. Afterwards, you turned to Sans and SixOne, showing them the panel that you needed to look over.

"Alright, now here is the access point. Thanks to the magical lines put down to help transfer the power, we can..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sixone: i am so lucky to have you, sir  
> gaster: thank you. i am acknowledging your affection and returning it. this is called character development
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	22. but, besides, i could not bring myself to disclose a secret

“And all has gone well?” Asgore prompted, watching you with a curious eye. “There has been no issues with the power source? I do remember that you were concerned about that.”

_Yes,_ you nearly bit out, only barely able to stop yourself - _I was concerned, but it was because I wasn’t sure if the puzzles_ you _insisted on putting in would take up too much energy!_

Of course, you would never say that out loud. Instead, you merely nodded.

“Everything has gone according to my estimations,” you said politely, refraining from mentioning any of your (many, many) grievances. “As long as things continue on the projected course, there should be no issues.”

“And the odds of things going as planned, are...?” Toriel said, raising a brow.

You nearly twitched, but managed to wrestle yourself under control at the last moment. “As well as I can make them, your majesty. I have no fear of the CORE overloading, and complete confidence in its ability to complete its duty."

“Good,” she nodded firmly. “The rest of the preparations are complete, and within the next several weeks we should have power distributed to the rest of the Underground.”

“Yes, that is wonderful news!” Asgore said, beaming proudly.

You couldn’t help but relax at the sight of his smiling face. It was moments like these when you were reminded of how much you _liked_ these monsters, the reason why you had called them your friends for many years.

Ironically enough, it was much harder to do that when you were working for them like this, directly. During the War efforts, you had mainly worked on your own, only occasionally meeting up with the then-generals to discuss strategy. You hadn’t agreed with their tactics, despite your long friendship, so you had pretty much struck out on your own.

Now, despite how much you enjoyed their company, you were constantly being reminded of why you had preferred to be your own boss.\

“Now, with this project finished, do you have anything else in the wings, Doctor?” Toriel said inquisitively, staring you down with a curious and slightly expectant gaze.

You withheld a grimace. The CORE project was far from finished. Just because construction had been completed didn’t mean that everything was bound to work perfectly - and you were still planning on doing a long study on the effects of the way the CORE used magic and thermal energy to function.

But, of course, they weren’t interested in hearing about that. All they wanted was something to break the barrier.

You couldn’t quite blame them - that was something you were quite invested in too, but it was a huge turnaround. Before they had found that human child, they had been far more interested in investing in their environment Underground; that was the whole reason the CORE project had begun in the first place!

_Damn it._ Just as you were beginning to get used to it, the rug had been pulled out from under you yet again.

Should you really be complaining, though? This was what you had wanted from the beginning - going back to the surface, reclaiming your homeland, getting revenge on those humans...

But that wasn't likely to happen, was it?

And that was what it all really boiled down to. Despite everything, despite all the progress you had made and the things you learned, you still couldn't help but hate humanity. The only real difference at this point was that you were now able to recognize exactly why.

(Holding grudges had long been a flaw of yours, and not one you knew how to correct. It also wasn't one that you were sure needed to be corrected, depending on the circumstances.)

All of those thoughts were bubbling up inside you, creating an uneasy and sickening mixture of hatred and fear in your skull. Still, you said nothing about it. What could you possibly say?

Instead, you merely shook your head. "I'm afraid that there has been no real progress in finding a way to break the barrier, your majesties. My team is doing what they can, but this is a type of magic that we have never encountered before. It will take time before we are able to - "

"I understand your plight, Doctor," Toriel interrupted, making your mouth snap shut with an audible click. Her one saving grace is that she did look truly remorseful in her action. "But I am afraid that time is something we no longer have the luxury of. How many years have we been in the Underground already? Chara... Chara will not live that long. If we ever wish to have them see the sun again, we must do something _soon."_

Some rather uncharitable thoughts flowed through you at the reminder of the human child that was residing in the palace, but you managed to reign them in with a grand display of self-restraint.

Still, some snide part of you felt like informing the two monarchs that you probably had a good fifty years before the human kicked it, but since they would most certainly not appreciate it, you kept it to yourself.

"We are doing what we can," you said finally, trying to find the correct way to phrase this. After all, there was a project that could possibly help with this, but... "I will let you know as soon as there are any major developments in the field."

It wasn't _quite_ a lie. You just really didn't want them to butt their way in like they had with the CORE project, adding so many unnecessary and frivolous things to your masterpiece. Besides, you hadn't even started preliminary testing on the project, so there was no reason to involve the royal family just yet.

Toriel seemed like she wanted to say something, but Asgore laid a hand on her shoulder and gifted you with a smile.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said warmly. "As always, your contributions to our kingdom are invaluable, and we know you will continue to serve us well in the future."

You couldn't help but smile back at him, bowing your head slightly in a show of respect.

"Of course, sir. Always."

...

It was back again. The skeleton.

Chara peered around the corner, watching the thing converse with the King and Queen. They knew, now, that it (he?) was simply another member of the monster race, but they were still wary.

There was something about him that was... different. _Unsettling._ And it really put their teeth on edge, if nothing else.

(Chara thought, maybe, a large part of that was because he somehow seemed _familiar.)_

They could rationalize, perhaps, that the skeleton hadn't meant to frighten them so terribly on that first day, but it didn't take away their fear. Or their suspicion.

There was something strange about the so-called Doctor Gaster, something _off._ They didn't know quite how to describe it, but they definitely knew it was there. And now, they were going to confront him.

It had taken _months_ to get this opportunity, and Chara wasn't going to waste it, especially since this was one of the few times that they'd been able to distract Asriel long enough to sneak away.

As Chara peeked around the corner once more, they saw that the meeting was wrapping up, making them grin in triumph. The child hurried off, taking the long way around to get to the weird corridor that Gaster would have to pass through in order to leave.

Chara had seen him do that strange (and pretty cool) teleportation trick before, but he didn't do it in the palace, as a sign of respect. This was going to be their only chance to corner him without anyone else interfering.

They hid behind one of the pillars, waiting with baited breath. The door at the far end of the corridor opened, and Gaster smoothly stepped through.

He didn't look particularly happy to be there, which Chara could understand. Some of the monsters called this area the Last Corridor, and it was a vaguely eerie place to be, despite its beautiful design. Just standing in here was giving Chara a weird feeling - like something was standing right behind them, _waiting._

Which was why Chara was planning to make this quick.

As Gaster strode down the corridor, his steps purposeful, Chara slid out from behind the pillar, looking up at him with a scowl on their face.

Gaster paused, his skull melding into a somewhat confused expression, but Chara didn't even give him the chance to take a breath.

"Why do you hate me?" Chara said demandingly, hands on their hips. It was obvious that he did - even if he wasn't cruel to them or anything like that, he treated them differently than the other monsters did.

Most monsters saw Chara as an opportunity to gain peace with the humans, as a way of showing that the two races could live together in harmony. Gaster seemed to do his best to pretend that Chara didn't exist.

Gaster looked at them silently, for a long moment, before sighing.

"I do not hate you, human," he said firmly, in that strange, whispery tone he always had. "Now, if you will excuse me - "

Chara immediately threw out their arm, stopping him from moving forward.

"If you don't hate me, then what is it?" they asked, clenching their fists. "What did I do?"

_And how can I fix it?_

Gaster didn't seem happy about it, but he refrained from pushing past Chara in order to escape.

Probably worried about what the King and Queen would say if they found out, Chara thought bitterly.

"You, on your own, did nothing," he answered calmly, folding his arms behind his back. Gaster was almost intimidatingly tall, and no moment showed it better than right now, when he was looming over them like this. "Humanity is my enemy, now you."

Well, at least he didn't try to deny that much.

"I'm a part of humanity," Chara pointed out, if a touch bitterly. They hated that it was true.

"Yes, that is correct," Gaster allowed, nodding. "But it is not individual humans that I hate. Individual humans have not had much of a chance to hurt me, especially not any of the ones that are alive right now. Humanity as a whole is a wretched, poisoned thing. But I judge individual humans as they are, not as a result of their species."

"So, what about me?" Chara challenged. The air in the corridor seemed to change, somewhat - they almost thought they could hear the sound of birds chirping in the distance. "What do you judge me as?"

For a long, long moment, Gaster said nothing. Then, he looked away.

"You are a child," he said, and there was something in his tone that Chara couldn't describe. "I have no right to judge you as anything, just yet."

That felt like a damn cop-out, but Chara knew that they weren't going to get anything better from him. Clenching their fists, they stepped aside to let the skeleton man pass. This felt like a surrender, somehow.

Gaster didn't wait another second, stepping past Chara to head on his way. Two steps later, he paused.

Chara turned to see him giving them that same evaluating look he had before, like he was peering down into the depths of their very soul.

"I don't hate you," he repeated. "In fact, I am entirely indifferent."

With those parting words, Gaster left the hall, stepping through the doorway without a second thought.

Chara watched him go, a twisted smirk blooming across their face. _Liar._

What a liar!

Chara couldn't help but laugh. No wonder they found Gaster so similar! He was just like _them._ Just like every other horrible, awful human that infected the surface world, lying and hurting each other for no other reason than because they could.

How funny! How _hilarious!_

Chara couldn't stop laughing, laughing themself hoarse in an empty hall where they could still hear the birds chirping somewhere, far, far away.

They were both liars, the two of them. But Chara was going to find a way to make up for it. Gaster was trying to break the barrier, right?

Let's see which of them could do it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chara: god, i hate humanity  
> gaster: join the club, kiddo
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	23. which would fill my hearer with consternation

It's time.

You've run the numbers, done the math. There wasn't quite enough clinical testing done to make you feel completely comfortable, but this wasn't something that was easy to test, either. No, this was bigger.

Bigger than anything you had ever done before - bigger than anything you had even _thought_ of before. Bigger than the barrier, and everything that laid beyond it.

This was about freedom. A freedom that wouldn't require human souls.

(Because of course, of course your rulers could not abide by such a thing. With them having taken in a human child, you dared not even ask them about it.)

This was about _your_ children, most of all. You wanted this for them.

"Doctor, we're all ready," SixOne said, his voice completely steady for once. When he got focused like this, he was a monster to be reckoned with. Not even Suzy could match his cool competence when he got fully into it.

"Good," you nodded, not voicing any of your thoughts aloud. Once this last round of testing was over, once you had a taste of what the machine could really do, then you would congratulate your coworker on his fine performance.

It was just you and SixOne in the lab right now, though you weren't the only ones aware of what was going on. You doubted that anything catastrophic would occur - you wouldn't have involved SixOne if you did, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Goss was upstairs in their office, but had been notified of the intended experiment, and had looked rather interested in finding out the results afterwards.

You couldn't blame them, as this was a more fascinating project than anything you'd had time to work on in a while. You'd written up many plans to try and find a way around the requirements of the barrier, but most of them had ended up as nothing more than blueprints; like your determination extractor. This was the only project that had made it this far.

And it was going to work. You would _force_ it to, if you had to.

"Recording equipment set up?" you checked one last time, not wanting anything to get missed.

Thankfully, SixOne didn't take offense at the last-minute question, understanding the need for diligence here.

"Yes, sir," he answered dutifully. "Audio and video are fully operational, and going steady. The printer is also ready."

"Good, good," you repeated, before letting out a slow (and entirely unnecessary) breath.

This was it. The moment of truth.

Ugh, had there always been so much pressure? You had the distinct feeling that there was, and you were simply better equipped to recognize it now. Was this nervousness what your fellow scientists always felt? If so, you hadn't been giving them nearly enough credit - this was nerve-wracking, and you didn't even _have_ nerves.

But you'd been stalling long enough. You'd checked over the data, run the tests. There was nothing left to do now but actually activate the damn thing.

Seriously, if you'd thought that the activation of the CORE was hard, it was nothing compared to this.

"I'll give you the signal," you said, striding over to the machine that would hopefully spit out the readouts you were looking for. "Are you ready, Doctor!"

"Yes," SixOne said, a wide smile on his face and his whiskers twitching in anticipation. "Let's do this!"

You smiled back, the energy infectious. "Alright... Now!"

SixOne pressed the button on the bulky machine that you had set up, all of the controls already in place. For a long moment, it did nothing, and you found yourself wondering if it had somehow broken.

But then a low humming sound began, and you let yourself relax. That was a good sign.

SixOne had a look of awe on his face as he gingerly let his hand rest on the machine, feeling the vibrations underneath his touch. As you had anticipated, the machine didn't shake too much, or cause any undue damage to the structure underneath it.

You'd gone out of your way to make sure that this was as safe as possible, so it stood to reason that even something like that wouldn't be too harsh.

But your attention was really being taken up by the readouts that were beginning to print, despite your desire to devote all of your analyzing to your beloved invention. What you wouldn't give to be able to be in two places at once!

Then again, that was why you had brought SixOne in, out of all of the scientists in your employ. He was smart, and analytical in a way that few others could replicate. He saw things that even you didn't catch onto. There was no one better to be doing this with you, even though a part of you chafed at having to ask for help.

That part of you was quickly pushed away, too excited at this moment to let yourself get caught up in it. This may be your invention and your research, but it was for the betterment of _everyone._ It only made sense that you involve others in the process.

The humming grew a bit louder - still not enough to cause any issues, but you could see SixOne's face pinching slightly. He was much closer to the machine, and he also had more sensitive hearing than you, so you could understand why he would be a little bothered. Hopefully this first print-off would finish before it became a problem for him.

Luckily, the process seemed to be going smoothly. Just from a quick glance, you could see that a decent amount of data was being covered - not as much as you had hoped, and there were some blank spots that you were a bit concerned about, but overall not bad for a first run-through.

The machine automatically shut itself down shortly after you made that observation, the humming slowly going away until even SixOne couldn't hear it anymore.

You pulled the printout away, frowning vaguely.

"What's it say?" SixOne said breathlessly, walking up to you as soon as he was sure that the machine had fully turned off.

"Mm, about what I expected," You said, handling the paper carefully to make sure it didn't tear. You held it up a bit closer to your face, trying to get a better look. "More blind spots than I thought there would be, but nothing that can't be easily corrected with a few adjustments."

You brought it back down, only to see SixOne giving it an eager look. You snorted, and held it out to him.

"Would you like to see, Doctor?" you said as gently as you could, knowing that SixOne would be highly embarrassed about being seen as 'desperate', despite the fact that he had every right to look at the results, considering how much time and effort he had put in to help you with this project.

"Oh, yes, please!" SixOne said, too thrilled to be caught up in his nerves right now.

He took the readout from you and glanced over the contents, eye widening.

"Wow..." he said breathlessly, seeming utterly enthralled in a way that you could highly sympathize with. "This... This is all the variations in the timeline?"

"Yes, exactly," You said proudly, raising your head a bit higher. You weren't joking when you claimed this machine as your greatest invention. The CORE was one thing - and certainly a thing you were proud of, but considering it hadn't been your idea in the first place, and also had so many modifications on it from your original design, it was hard to feel ownership over it.

This was something _you_ had made. And how long had it been since you made something?

(Not since the boys, you'd wager. And that had turned out pretty well, hadn't it? At least, you thought so.)

SixOne placed the paper down on the table, and you both bent over it.

"Here," you said, reaching out and tracing one the many lines present. "As of right now, this is the largest one. This is the string that had the most possibilities in it, the most chances for something _else_ to happen."

The string you were indicating was thick, and had so many little strings branching off of it that they were hard to count. Based on the timing, you guessed that this was because of...

"The kids," SixOne muttered aloud, having figured out the timing himself. "There was really this many variations on how that could have gone?"

You smiled, but it was a touch strained. "I imagine so. And not all of them have to be drastic changes, though I'm sure many of them are. For some, the change could even be something as simple me deciding to give the children different food, or someone else being there when Papyrus first woke up."

SixOne grimaced slightly, and he rubbed his cheeks in remembrance of the time. "That might not have been so bad..."

You laughed suddenly, caught off-guard by the monster's quip.

"I'm sure," you said teasingly, making him sputter. Then, you shook your head, getting back to business. "For now, this provides a lot of data, and I will definitely be recording it in the books for later. But eventually, my hope is to be able to actually communicate with these other timelines."

"Seriously?" SixOne said, wide-eyed. "And, um, I know this is an obvious question, but what for?"

"To find out if, and how, they broke the barrier, of course!"

It wasn't a perfect plan, by any means, but you had confidence that it would work. After all, who better to help you than yourself?

...

You'd had to escape the lab quickly after that, since it was getting rather late. And, well, because SixOne had started asking how you came up with the idea in the first place, and you'd had to desperately find a way to change the subject.

After all, you never wanted to confess to anyone that you got the idea because of your interactions with -

"Hello, Doctor."

_"Riverperson,"_ you said curtly, shoulders slumping as you thought of your lost exit. They'd managed to nab you right as you were leaving the lab, too, so you didn't even have the opportunity to shortcut out of here without seeming utterly rude.

"You've done well," they said, going right into it without any time for pleasantries (though you weren't exactly interested in such a thing in the first place). "In fact, some might say that you've done enough. Isn't it better to quit while you're ahead?"

You blinked, startled by this turn. Where was the rhyming, the weird prophecies? You'd never had Riverperson speak to you so plainly before. And... there was something about the way they were looking at you. You couldn't see their face, of course, but there was _something..._

"Quit?" you said, bewildered. "How could I? Progress never ends. I want to be there to see it happen. How could I _not?"_

Riverperson merely stared at you for a long moment, and then seemed to sigh, their shoulders slumping.

"Of course, I knew you would say that," they said, in a tone that could almost be described as mournful. "But still, somehow, I was hoping... Well. It doesn't matter now."

Without another word, they walked away, vanishing after turning the corner towards the river. You just stood there, stunned. What the heck was that?

You actually took a moment to walk forward instead of shortcutting immediately, trying to get your thoughts together.

Why would the Riverperson approach you, only to say something like that? What was the -

"Oof!" You grunted, taking a step back when something practically rammed into your legs.

You looked down, thing for a moment that you hadn’t been watching where you were going and walked right into a boulder.

But instead, it was a young lizard monster, younger than even your sons (well, physically at least). She seemed absolutely mortified to have run into you like this, but there was a spark of… determination in there, too.

“Y-You’re the Royal Scientist, right?” she said shakily.

“Yes, indeed,” you said, blinking. It wasn’t often that a child took interest in your position.

“W-Well!” she took a deep breath, apparently steeling herself. “I-I wanna b-be the Royal Scientist one d-day, too!”

You smiled. It wasn’t even a conscious thing - seeing a child so interested in science, so _passionate…_ That alone was enough to make you happy.

“Well then,” you said with a spark of humor. “I look forward to having you replace me.”

She sputtered, the scales on her face flushing as she tried to wave her hands in denial, but you only chuckled.

You thought of Sans, of Papyrus - even Undyne. This new generation was really going to be something, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> riverperson: i suppose i should have known better  
> riverperson: until next time, my friend
> 
> hey, hope y'all are enjoying!! lemme know what you think. if you have a question/wanna chat, then feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)! love y'all <3


	24. silent when i would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret

Sans was suspicious. He couldn’t help it - there was definitely something going on, and Gaster wasn’t telling them anything. However, Papyrus surprisingly wasn’t worried about it, which was a strange reversal of their usual roles.  

He observed his father rushing around the house, wondering what Papyrus was seeing that he couldn’t. Perhaps he was overreacting?

“Aha! Found it!” Gaster said triumphantly, holding an old notebook in the air triumphantly.

“what is it?” Sans asked, more out of nosiness than actual curiosity.

“Oh!” Gaster jumped a little, as if he hadn’t even realized that Sans was in the room.”Uh, it’s... nothing! Yes, nothing. Don’t worry about it, Sans.”

Okay, yeah. He was _definitely_ right to be suspicious.

“hm...” Sans hummed, giving his father a narrow-eyed glare. “i’m gonna hold you to that, you know.”

“Yes, yes,” Gaster muttered distractedly, already flipping through the notebook without regard for Sans’ presence. He pulled out a pen, quickly scribbling something down as he walked over to the kitchen, muttering to himself under his breath.

Sans rolled her eyelights, but went back to the book he was reading. Gaster had honestly gotten better about this sort of thing. He didn’t fear for his father’s actual safety anymore, at the very least. Gaster always made sure that he came home to them.

Of all the things Sans was worried about - Gaster’s HP, the pressure the King and Queen put on him, a mysterious past that Sans hadn’t even begun to unravel... he wasn’t worried about that.

...

Honestly, Sans could be so _dense_ sometimes. Papyrus knew that his brother would protest that label greatly, but it was true!

Really, if there was one thing that Sans had inherited from their father, it would be that. He was brilliant, but he often had trouble looking at the bigger picture.

(Which, in itself spawned a lot of problems, but Papyrus didn’t even have time to get into those now.)

If Sans had just bothered to ask what Gaster was up to instead of glaring at him suspiciously from the comfort of the couch, he would see that there was nothing to worry about! That’s exactly what Papyrus had done, after all.

During the construction of the CORE, Gaster had been excited momentarily, but he seemed to have lost the spark rather quickly. It came back soon after the CORE was finished and operational, and Papyrus, happy for his father, had asked why.

The answer, of course, had been that he was working on another project. There was no greater love in Gaster’s life than science - he adored them, of course, and Papyrus had never doubted that even when his (dense) brother had, but since science had been what created them in the first place, Papyrus could understand it.

This new project was making Gaster more excited and invested than Papyrus had seen in _years._ Of course, a part of him suspected that was because the Royal family had no... real knowledge of what the project contained, just that there _was_ one, which allowed Gaster a lot more freedom than he had been allowed in recent years.

Gaster was convinced that this project was going to change everything. It was obvious, from the way his eyelights expanded when he spoke about it, the way even his shoulders relaxed as if a burden had been taken off of them.

He was expecting a lot from this. Maybe even to break the barrier.

And _that_ was enough to make Papyrus uneasy.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in his father, or didn’t think he would be able to accomplish this. It was just...

Gaster’s health had been declining. Not in an entirely obvious way, really. But in a long, subtle way. He tired more easily, ate even less than before. Despite Papyrus’ best efforts, Gaster had returned to mainly surviving on milkshakes, though he made a point to eat at least one meal a day with his kids.

It was difficult for Papyrus to watch. He didn’t know how to help, either - how could he try to bully Gaster into getting more rest when he was already sleeping more than he ever had before? What could he do to increase an appetite that wasn’t there?

And the most frustrating thing was that he didn’t know why. Gaster seemed entirely oblivious to the change, but Sans obviously knew something. He was even twitchier than usual, and _that_ was saying something for his chronically paranoid older brother.

Heck, even the other scientists seemed to know something was up! Not all of them, and they didn’t all seem to know the specifics, but Suzy and Goss were acting almost _too_ casual.

It was a puzzle, and not the kind that Papyrus typically enjoyed. He could only sigh loudly to himself as his father came in the room, mumbling something under his breath.

When there was no reaction, Papyrus sighed _louder._

Gaster looked up, blinking in surprise. “Oh, Papyrus. Is there something wrong?”

“NO, NOTHING WRONG,” Papyrus said, though a bit ruefully. He could tell just by looking that Gaster wouldn’t have the concentration to deal with an interrogation right now. He was way too wrapped up in that notebook, whatever it contained. Actually... “WHAT ARE YOU UP TO, G?”

“Ah!” Gaster honestly lit up, forcing Papyrus to smother a laugh behind his hand. “It’s...! A surprise, actually. My bad. I promise I’ll tell you soon, okay?”

He seemed genuinely mournful of the fact that he couldn’t just blurt it out immediately. Papyrus grinned, happy to see this side of his father that could be so very rare.

“IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH YOUR NEW PROJECT, RIGHT?” He guessed, judging that it was the only thing that had really gotten Gaster excited lately.

“Yes, yes!” Gaster said with a grin, snapping the notebook shut. “But that’s the only hint you’re getting! The rest _has_ to be a surprise, all right?”

“OKAY, I’VE GOT IT!” Papyrus said, raising his hands in surrender. “I WON’T TRY TO FIGURE IT OUT, I PROMISE.”

That was true, at least. After all, surprises were much more fun if you were genuinely surprised! And Papyrus trusted his father enough to know that it wouldn’t be anything bad.

“Good,” Gaster nodded. “Now, I have to get going, and I’ll let you know what’s going to happen later, okay?”

“ALRIGHT,” Papyrus agreed, privately amused by the enthusiasm. _This_ ought to be good.

...

Polishing a glass, Grillby his a frown. It wasn’t very hard, considering that his entire body was comprised of fire and most of his fellow monsters had difficulty reading his facial expressions to begin with, but still.

He couldn’t help but be concerned. Gaster had been acting... strange. Not in any particular _harmful_ way, he could admit, but in a way that was out of character.

Some may not have seen his newfound enthusiasm and vigor as an issue, but most people didn’t know Gaster the way Grillby did. He would even go so far as to say that he knew Gaster better than any other monster alive. Asgore would have probably held that title before, but as time went on and both monsters became more wrapped up in their duties, the easy side of their friendship had dwindled.

A part of him mourned the loss, since both monsters were _his_ friends as well, but he understood.

However, Grillby has a lot more contact with Gaster, and practically saw him every day with how often he came in to order those milkshakes of his. That meant that Grillby had pretty much a front-row seat to Gaster’s many ‘breakthroughs’. He’d also been witness to a lot of _breakdowns,_ with the one over the creation of his children being far from the last, but Grillby had never minded.

Gaster was his friend, and one that he had almost lost contact with, all those years ago. It wasn’t often that he was comfortable enough with someone to speak with them plainly, and he knew now that he would have dearly missed that sense of camaraderie, should he have abandoned it.

Gaster was his _friend_ \- and that was why he was concerned. He was acting nearly manic, like he used to during the war. Like when he had developed those terrifying ‘gaster blasters’. It had been instrumental in keeping monsters alive, of course, but it had come with a cost that Grillby suspected Gaster might not have been ready to pay. He wasn’t even sure if Gaster was aware of it.

Grillby let out a faint sigh, with the sound of hissing steam. Whatever was going on, it would come to a head soon. He knew that much.

He could only hope that it would go well.

...

_“You’re not like them. Don’t get caught up in a dream that can’t exist.”_ _  
_

_“But Father, I - “_ _  
_

_“Don’t try to go against it!” the older skeleton snapped, his golden eyelights staring down at you. “You’re not a normal monster, Gaster. You’re half-human. Did you think that wouldn’t have any consequences?”_ _  
_

…

You jolted awake, rubbing at your eye sockets with a yawn. 

“Whazzit?” You mumbled, trying to gain your bearings. Had you fallen asleep at your desk again? How strange... You could’ve sworn that you were somewhere else.

“Time to get ready, Doctor,” Ficus said, amusement clear in his tone. But there was a muted excitement too, and it caught your attention immediately. “Didn’t you want to bring your kids?”

You shot up, blinking rapidly to get the sleep out of your eyes. “Oh, yes! Please excuse me!”

Walking briskly out of the lab, you turned the corner and went straight into a shortcut, appearing in your living room.

“Sans, Papyrus!” You called out, seeing that they weren’t in the downstairs area. “Are you here?”

There was no answer, and you frowned. You really had wanted them to come along, but... Oh well. They must have been out somewhere, since today wasn’t a school day. Hm, maybe you should have tried to plan your ‘surprise’ better...

You shrugged it off, and pulled something out of your lab coat. It was a small notebook, creased heavily with long you’d been using it. Pulling out another piece of paper, you scribbled a small note on it, and then stuck it inside the notebook.

Placing it on the living room table, you nodded in satisfaction.

You had written that notebook for them, containing information about every single one of your experiments. The gasterblasters, the CORE, the timeline machine... Even their own creations. _Everything_ they could possibly need or want to know was written within that single notebook.

You thought that they were old enough now to handle it - and hopefully to appreciate it!

You stood up, and looked around for a moment, hesitating. Should you wait for the boys to get back?

...A part of you really, _really_ wanted to. You’d wanted to share this moment with them, show them what could be accomplished with just a little determination.

But, it seemed it just wasn’t to be. You really couldn’t afford to wait any longer - your scientists were waiting, and progress never ends.

It was fine. Sans and Papyrus would understand, and you would see them again later.

...

“Setting are all set, Doctor!” Suzy called out, beaming in excitement. She’d been the hold-out on this, unsure if the experiment would work enough to actually be worth anything, but she’d happily conceded when she’d seen the data you provided her from the other day. In fact, she was so enthralled with the possibilities that her stutter had practically disappeared while she was raving about it.

“Readings are all steady,” Goss said, nodding professionally to you.

Your relationship with the other doctor was still slightly... strained, but you had been friends for too long to let something like this keep you down. This project was a chance to work together again, on equal terms. You knew that things would be okay.

All of the scientists were here, bustling around and ready to go. Everyone had a bright grin on their face, even the more restrained members, and you couldn’t blame them. This was going to change everything!

“Okay,” You said, feeling nearly breathless. “Let’s start up the machine!”

Excited murmurs went around the room, and the humming began. It got louder and louder, but you weren’t concerned. You’d put so many safety precautions in this thing that you had practically baby-proofed it. The worst it could do was explode - and you were down in the lower levels of the lab, where the walls were highly reinforced, for that very reason.

Worst come to worst, you would be able to shortcut everyone out of here.

“Hey, is it... _supposed_ to be doing that?” Ficus said suddenly, frowning as he fiddled some some of the adjusters.

“Let me see.” You went over, seeing that the display was nothing but static. The humming was getting louder. “It’s... well, it’s not _great._ Seems the connection wasn’t established as securely as we hoped.”

You were trying to get into contact with another timeline, even if only for a few seconds. The data you could get from that would be immensely helpful!

Still...

“Shut it down,” You said, shaking your head. “Let’s see what the printout says, adjust the levels, and try again tomorrow.”

The other echoed the sentiment, though you knew that they were a bit disappointed. You were too, to be honest.

“Uh, Doctor?” Ficus said, sounding rather nervous. “It’s not shutting off.”

_“What - ?”_

From the display screen, the actual screen, a strange dark goop seemed to seep out, making the others jump back in fear.

You stepped forward, pushing Ficus and SixOne behind you and away from the machine, only for the goop to pool onto the floor and latch onto your leg with a vengeance.

Goss cried out in alarm, and everyone was _panicking!_

“How did this happen?!” SixOne yelped, his ears pinned back against his head. “How did a _portal_ open? Did we go too far in, or something?”

You struggled, trying to wrench your leg away from the substance so that you could get everyone out of here. It was too close-quarters to use one of your magic attacks, and you had to work quickly!

“No...” Suzy breathed out, eyes wide in horror. “It’s not that we’re going too far _in,_ it’s that something is trying to break _out!”_

The darkness exploded out of the machine, causing sparks and fizz out into the air, and the _thing_ reached out, trying to drag you in.

You cursed, trying to fight back - one of the scientists grabbed your hand, trying to keep you from falling - someone screamed and another person was yelling, but the sound was too incoherent and you couldn’t figure out who - black overtook your vision and you couldn’t see and you couldn’t hear and you couldn’t _remember_ -

And you -

_f_ _  
_

_e_ _  
_

_l_ _  
_

_l_ _  
_

...

When you woke up ~~(did you wake up? what was happening? what’s going on? what’s going on?)~~ , everything was dark. There was someone standing in front of you - a monster with entirely white eyes, and a happy expression.

~~“I-I d-don’t understand,”~~ you tried to say, your voice glitching and melding into something that was impossible for even you to interpret. ~~“W-What’s going on on on on don’t understand?”~~

The monster opposite you just smiled.

“Yo, Doctor Gaster!” the gray child said, wagging their tail from side to side in excitement. “Man, have I been waiting a long time for you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[x]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzM2oWtTAws)
> 
> [tumblr](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com)


	25. i could offer no explanation of them

She was sitting on the couch. Why was she on the couch? Wasn't she... waiting for someone? Yeah. Someone had wanted to tell her something, something that they were... excited about? Anticipating?

She couldn't really remember.

Wasn't she planning on sneaking out, anyway? She was going to go visit... visit a friend. Or so she thought, anyway.

But what was the point in that? If she couldn't even remember who it was, it probably wasn't very important.

She'd just go hang out at the dump by herself. Besides, she didn't really... _have_ any friends in the first place. Too brash. Too loud. Just too _much._

Or at least that was what her mother said, whenever she bothered to visit.

Undyne had spent most of her life by herself. Why should this afternoon be any different?

...

Felix sighed, pillowing his head on his arms. Everything was just so _hopeless_. And his father was especially so.

"I-It's alright," his father stuttered, trying to sound reassuring. "I can find another job, and I still have some money saved up, so, uh, we'll be okay for a little bit!"

"Some money saved up?" Felix said, wrinkling his nose. That sounded impossible for someone like his irresponsible father to do. "Where'd you get _that?"_

"O-Oh, well..." he trailed off, avoiding his son's eye. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure... But it's definitely real gold!"

Felix wanted to punch something. Of course his father would stumble upon a bunch of shady money. Of _course._ Why couldn't anything work out for him?! He wasn't even ten years old yet, and at this rate he was going to have to drop out of school and get a job just to help this idiot keep the house!

"And that _doesn't_ sound like a scam to you?" he said demandingly, and his father only stuttered, not knowing how to respond.

Felix just sighed, dismissing it. He really wished there was someone else in his life that he could rely on.

...

Lick rubbed his eyes with his webbed hands, letting out a groan. Everything seemed to be going wrong, recently.

First, he'd gotten dumped. Then, his route to work had turned out to still be blocked by the construction of that damn hotel (that he still desperately wanted to visit), and now this photo was giving him a headache!

It was the one in a frame, on his bedside table. It looked like one of his old family photos, but it was so blurred out and yellowed with age that it was hard for him to tell. In it, Lick thought that he had his arm over someone's shoulder, but...

He couldn't see the other monster's face. Every time he tried to look closer, it just made his headache worse. Who was it? Who was in the photo? Didn't Lick know them? ~~Who was it? Who was in the -~~

Lick got out of his bed, grabbing the frame with one hand and dumping it carelessly in the trash.

Why was he keeping old garbage like that around, anyway? He couldn't even see who was in the photo.

Obviously, it wasn't _that_ important.

...

Deep in Hotland, there was an empty apartment. It belonged to _someone_ \- that much was known. But no one could quite remember _who._

_Reclusive,_ whispered the neighbors, but that didn't feel quite right.

_Busy with work?_ Another suggested, and that seemed a bit closer to the truth.

But still, no one knew. And no one knew what to _do_ with the empty apartment, either. Someone thought to slide a note under the door, but nothing came of it. One neighbor swore that they could see the lights turn on sometimes, that they could see the shadow of someone walking back and forth from just beyond the door...

One neighbor, fed-up with all of this nonsense, stood in front of the door and knocked and knocked and knocked, refusing to leave until they got an answer.

~~But nobody came.~~

A few times, guilty monsters had thought about breaking in, just getting a tiny peek inside, but...

In the end, they couldn't. After all, the monster who lived at the apartment could be coming home any minute now.

...

Alphys sniffled miserably, wiping away her tears. She'd made a fool of herself yet again.

Lately, she'd been feeling much more confident. She'd been feeling like she was actually worth something, that she was worthy of the intelligence she held.

But that feeling had disappeared as fast as it came, and Alphys suspected that she was even worse off now.

What was the point of being smart? What was the point in having good test grades, or winning awards, or loving science? She would never be confident enough to go anywhere with it. To even dare to dream about being the Royal Scientist... It was _crazy._

The position had never been filled for a reason. There was just no one around that was good enough.

And the way things were now, she would definitely not be the one to break that streak.

...

Grillby mindlessly cleaned the glass in his hands, allowing the noise of the bar to wash over him. There were a couple of regulars sitting in front of him, but he knew that they would be all set for a bit, so he left them alone.

It seemed like that was always the case.

How long had it been since Grillby had actually talked to someone? Since he had managed to have a straight conversation? Monsters rarely understood the language of hands, and his own unique dialect even less.

The only recent encounter he could think of was with that skeleton monster.

~~(those skeletons...?)~~

Ah, yes. The brothers. They had just... appeared one day. They lived in the big empty house on the edge of Snowdin, and even if they didn't actually own the place, no one had the heart to tell them to go away.

Honestly, to the town's residents, it seemed like they had known the two boys for a long time. They were easy to get along with, and generally good-natured, so that was understandable.

Though Grillby would never understand how the older brother had gotten into the habit of coming here just to order a bottle of ketchup, of all things. Talk about unhealthy eating habits...

~~(actually, it reminded him a bit of... someone?)~~

Sans was a good child, though. Grillby could admit to some fondness. So he allowed the kid to get away with a lot - like taking out a tab, for example. Somehow, in the back of his mind, he knew that someone was going to pay it.

~~(...someone?)~~

Shaking his head slightly, Grillby frowned. He had been getting so many irritating headaches, recently. He was worried that it was starting to affect him in a detrimental manner.

Silently, he grabbed another glass. It wouldn't do to get behind on his work.

...

"If we want to have any chance of breaking the barrier..." Toriel said softly, imploring her husband to listen.

Asgore sighed, nodding reluctantly. "We will have to find a replacement for the Royal Scientist position."

"Well, I would not quite call it a replacement," Toriel said wryly, her muzzle turning up in an expression of vague amusement. "No one has held that position in hundreds of years, if I recall correctly."

"You do indeed," Asgore chuckled, though the sound was weighed down by some unnamable sadness.

They had hesitated for so long on this issue, and neither of them really knew why. A Royal Scientist was instrumental for the work they needed to be done right now, but somehow...

They'd been waiting for the right monster. Asgore just knew that they were out there somewhere, that somewhere in the Underground was the monster that he knew should hold this position. Toriel trusted him on it, and confessed to having a similar feeling of her own.

But, as always, she was the pragmatic type, and no matter how much they wished otherwise, they could no longer afford to stall. The barrier had to be broken, and soon.

If it wasn't...

...

"Howdy, Chara! Smile for the camera!"

"Ha, this time I got YOU! I left the cap on... ON PURPOSE! Now you're smiling for noooo reason! Hee hee hee."

"What? Oh, yeah, I remember. When we tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right? The recipe asked for cups of butter... But we accidentally put in buttercups instead."

"Yeah! Those flowers got him really sick. I felt so bad. We made Mom really upset. I should have laughed it off, like you did... "

"Um, anyway, where are you going with this?"

"Huh? Turn off the camera...? OK."

...

"...Asriel. I want to free monsters. Humanity... it doesn't deserve to have the surface, not while you're all just stuck here. Please... will you help me?"

...

After all, the old one... ~~Doctor Gaster~~. What an act to follow!

They say he created the Core.

However, his life... was cut short.

One day, he fell into his creation, and…

…

But the old Royal Scientist, ~~Doctor W.D. Gaster~~?

They say he shattered across time and space.

I'm holding a piece of him right here.

…

The previous one... ~~Dr. Gaster~~.

His brilliance was irreplaceable.

One day, his experiments went wrong, and…

Well, I needn't gossip.

…

There is a girl. She stands in Waterfall, a blank look on her face.

“ **Suzy…?** Where have you gone?”

Then, she smiles, and clasps her hands together.

“It’s alright, **Suzy**. Fate will find a way.”

Her body twists, and begins to fade. She is still smiling.

…

Sans yawned, feeling exhausted. It had been another long day chasing after his younger brother, trying to keep up with his energy and try to stop him from getting hurt. Some selfish part of him really wished that Papyrus had some other kids to play with, but there were no other children their age in Snowdin, so they had to make due with what they’ve got.

Papyrus had already run ahead, bounding up the stairs and into his room. He’d found another pet rock to take care of, and he wanted to show it his bedroom.

And, hey -  Paps liked to take care of things, take care of _people._ Who was Sans to go against that? Besides, Papyrus mothered him almost obsessively anyway. This might actually get some of the attention off of him.

He wandered over to the couch, laying down on it with a huff.

He was so tired.

Just as he was about to drift off, something on the living room table caught his eye. A notebook…?

It didn’t look like one of his, so it must have been Papyrus’. Still, he opened it up, intending to just take a quick peek. Flipping through the pages, he saw what looked like a lot of weird diagrams, blueprints for one crazy-looking thing after another. There seemed to be writing on it, but it was too messy for Sans to understand. Some of them didn’t even look like they were in the same language. Could these be some of Papyrus’ puzzle designs, maybe…?

(Deep underneath the lab in Hotland, a machine sparked. It would lay there for many, many years, as any of the monsters who investigated the lab wouldn’t dare to go down that far. Something in there just felt ~~wrong~~.)

Just as he was about to toss it aside, he noticed something by the front cover.

It was a picture, drawn in crayon. It actually looked like one of Papyrus’ early drawings, which was weird; why would his brother stick one of his old drawings in a place like this? In the drawing, there was three separate figures, two of them tall and one almost comically short. The tallest one had what seemed to be a red scarf, and a bunch of sparkles around their head.

Heh, that was Papyrus alright. The other tall figure was wearing almost all black, with splashes of white that seemed like they were supposed to be some kind of sweater, or coat? They didn’t look familiar, so Sans dismissed it as a figment of Papyrus’ (extremely active) imagination. The last figure was obviously him, short and stout with a blue coat.

Heh. His brother was so cool.

But, there… Underneath the old drawing, in a strange, almost childish scrawl, there were two words -

~~“Don’t forget!”~~

Sans blinked. What on earth could that mean?

He shrugged, tucking the picture away inside the notebook and putting it on the shelf. Oh well. Maybe he would ask Papyrus about it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[game over]](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com/post/178949590906/entry-number-seventeen-closing)
> 
> [[...continue?]](https://theragingprophet.tumblr.com/post/178949551936/entry-number-seventeen-special)


End file.
